Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands

by Susan Carol McCarthy

  “Won’t they kill each other first?” Vaylie gasps, mesmerized by the drama below.

  “No, watch! They want to run for cover, but the big one—see him?—the race won’t start ’til he says so.”

  The biggest one, diamond head high above the others, twirls himself into position, twisting a giant coil across the necks of the other two, then, darting and dancing, presses their heads down into the dirt.

  Dominance established, Ren’s snake, the smallest, is first to quit the dance. It stretches out flat—at least four feet— and wriggles its way toward Dry Sink’s side and the stand of palmetto. The other two join him and the race begins. Screaming, we cheer them and howl as Roy’s snake, the big one, pulls ahead and vanishes into the scrub, with Ren’s and Dwayne’s just behind.

  All of a sudden, the boys punch each other in victory and defeat, a big clap of thunder yanks our attention to the sky. While we were looking elsewhere, a dark mound of clouds has boiled itself into a surly black storm bank. Out of nowhere, lightning flashes on top of us, sparking a mad scramble out of the tree. A high branch in a giant live oak is no place to be in a Florida thunderstorm. Gasping at the splat of raindrops the size of soup spoons, flinching at the roar of the thunder, the boys veer left through the scrub toward Samsons’. Vaylie and I run right, through the grove toward home.

  In the kitchen, Doto looks up from her letter-writing. “When I heard the thunder, I knew you’d be home soon. You must be Maryvale,” she says, regally extending her hand.

  “Vaylie, please, ma’am. Vaylie Carrollton.”

  “I’ve driven through the town of Carrollton in Virginia. Any relation?”

  “Yes, ma’am, my daddy’s family’s lived there forever, raisin’ horses and growin’ tobacco.”

  “You may call me Doto.”

  “Dodo? Like the Dodo bird?” Vaylie is puzzled but polite.

  I laugh. “No, Doto, like DeSoto, the kind of car she drives.”

  “Pleased to meet ya,” Vaylie says, stretching her freckles in a smile.

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” Doto nods. “If you girls want a snack, there are Oreos in the jar and milk in the Frigidaire,” she says, turning her attention back to her letter.

  “Mind if we sit out the storm in the attic?” I ask.

  “Be my guest,” Doto waves.

  The roof of our house is heavy-gauge tin, and the thirdfloor attic, accessible only through Doto’s room, is the best possible place to enjoy a good storm. The slant of the rain, the wind, the thunder and lightning create what I call the tin-tin symphony. Vaylie and I spread out a quilt on the wood plank floor and, like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Fantasia , conduct the elements with our cookies dipped in milk. After a while, when the storm dies down to a slow drone, Vaylie’s attention turns to the attic.

  “This all y’all’s stuff?” she asks, picking her way around an old trunk.

  “Nope, most of it was Mr. Swann’s. He used to own this house. Mother keeps threatening she’s going to throw it all out.”

  “Who’s this?” Vaylie’s holding up a picture of a serious-looking lady in a big black hat.

  “No idea.”

  “Kinda ugly, isn’t she?” she says, setting down the dusty gold frame.

  “Sort of, but like Mother says, ‘pretty’s only skin-deep.’ ”

  “Yeh, and my mamma says, ‘Sometimes pretty’s all you got.’ ” Vaylie says, smearing her hands on her shorts.

  “I think your mother’s very pretty,” I say.

  “Well, of course she is. She was Miss Richmond at age eighteen, went on to become Miss Virginia, 1937. She was the prettiest girl in our state, that’s why Daddy married her.” Vaylie’s picking through an old button box.

  “My father married Mother because she was a Bridge Champion,” I tell her proudly.

  “What’s that?” Vaylie frowns, holding a pair of silver buttons up to her ears.

  “Well, it’s someone who’s really good at the card game called Bridge. He met her at a country club tournament. It was a member-guest event, and she was the guest of another member. Daddy says Mother beat the socks off everybody there, in spite of the fact that her partner was a dummy. He says that after she demolished his hand, he had to ask for hers.”

  “Your daddy proposed to your mother because she beat him at cards?” Vaylie asks, not believing me.

  “That’s what he says, and because right before she wins, she flashes him her Judy Garland grin.”

  “Your mother looks like Judy Garland?” Vaylie’s impressed.

  “Well, yes, we think so.”

  “Whoa, what’s this?” Vaylie asks, standing tiptoe to pull a fat hatbox off the top of an old armoire.

  “Hat, maybe?” I wonder, moving closer to see.

  The box top’s pattern is barely visible under its thick coat of dust. Vaylie lifts it and the eyes of a handsome young man in military uniform smile back at us. “Neat,” Vaylie says, lifting the photo to reveal a flag folded in a triangle, and a stack of yellow papers.

  “Let’s turn on the light,” I say, stepping around an abandoned rocker to reach the switch.

  The top newspaper clipping is somebody’s death announcement.

  Lieutenant Richard Randall Swann, U.S. Army, Slain in Second Battle at River Marne, the black headline reads. We check the date. September 28, 1918.

  “This stuff’s ancient,” Vaylie says, sorting quickly through the rest of the stack.

  “He must have been old Mr. Swann’s son. Looks a lot like Tyrone Power, don’t you think?”

  Vaylie doesn’t answer. Instead, she gasps. “My Gawd, Reesa, look here!”

  The party scene cut from the yellowed newspaper is of a cluster of ladies behind a lace-draped table topped with a big silver punch bowl, a party cake and a tall vase of flowers. Below it, the line of print says Miss Maybelle Mason to Wed Local Hero. Dead center, a pretty young woman smiles broadly for the camera. The date is September 15, 1918. Vaylie reads me the story:

  Mrs. Blanche Ogden Swann entertained at her home on Old Dixie Highway Saturday night in honor of Miss Maybelle Mason, who will wed the highly decorated Lieutenant Richard Randall Swann on Sunday, October 15th. The affair was a variety shower and the bride received many beautiful and useful gifts. After a delicious supper was served, the ladies entertained themselves with games. A mock wedding was the source of much merriment. Guests included: Mrs. Caroline Mason, Misses Bertine Turner . . .

  “...and a whole bunch of other names.” Vaylie hands me the article.

  “Oh, Vaylie,” I say, comparing dates, “he died ten days after the party, two weeks before the wedding!”

  “How awful for Great-Aunt Maybelle!” Vaylie exclaims, looking back at the smiling bride-to-be. “Poor thing, how’d she ever get over it?”

  “Maybe she didn’t, Vaylie. Some things, well, some things you never get over.”

  “I know,” she says darkly. “Like people being mean to each other who ought not to.”

  “And getting killed,” I add, “for no reason at all.”

  “Girls!” Doto calls from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s four forty-five. Doesn’t Vaylie have to be at Maybelle’s by five o’clock?”

  “Oh, Lord,” Vaylie says, holding up the hatbox, “think we should take this stuff to her?”

  “I don’t know. It might . . . well . . . mightn’t it bring up a batch of memories best left alone?”

  “You’re probably right.” Vaylie sighs, replacing the lid very carefully, returning the box to the top of the armoire. “It explains a lot, though, don’t it?”

  Outside, the road has switched from the dry, baked asphalt of a few hours ago to a shiny wet ribbon reflecting us. Rain-washed leaves glitter in the sun. Walking back, we talk quietly about our secret discovery under the dust in the attic. Vaylie promises to quiz her grandfather, Miss Maybelle’s brother, for more information; both of us swear to be pen pals for life.

  In the driveway, Vaylie’s mother leans against her big blue Cadilla
c. Purse and keys in hand, it’s clear she’s ready to go. Miss Maybelle checks her watch as we enter the gate.

  “Not bad, Reesa. Your mother have to remind you?” she queries, her metal-rimmed glasses glaring in the sun.

  “Doto did, actually.” Vaylie grins widely. “But we had the best time together! Thank you for thinking of it, Aunt Maybelle!” she says and, with a great rush of feeling, flings her arms around our wrinkled old postmistress.

  Miss Maybelle freezes inside Vaylie’s embrace, then pats her, stiff-handed, on the back, wanting to be let go.

  “You’re welcome, Maryvale,” she says formally, smoothing the front of her post office uniform, almost as if wiping off Vaylie’s warmth.

  “I’ll write you the very first second I can,” my new friend vows as she hugs me goodbye.

  With the best of intentions—to somehow comfort an ancient heartache—Vaylie’s left Miss Maybelle plainly unsettled, a step off her usual statue-like control. As the two of us stand awkwardly by the road, watching the blue Cadillac disappear, I want to tell Miss Maybelle, Vaylie didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, she’s never lost anyone so she doesn’t understand.

  Grief, I think, signs you up in a separate, invisible club, members selected at death’s awful randomness. “Gone forever” is our password, lingering sorrow our secret handshake. If you haven’t lost someone important to you, you can’t begin to know the rules. Truth is, you don’t even know the club exists.

  As my own grieving heart recognizes another, my lifelong view of Miss Maybelle as the angry old snapping turtle shifts. Opening the gate for her, calling a soft yet proper “good evening, ma’am,” I resolve to treat her more kindly from now on.

  All of a sudden, Doto’s three big suitcases appear from under her bed, lined up, mouths open, across her window seat. I’m sorry to see her go, but she’s promised Uncle Harry she’ll leave this week, crossing the country to Montana before the Memorial Day traffic hamstrings the highways.

  “I’ll be back for Christmas, though,” she promises Ren and me, “and, of course, I’ll call right away if we hear anything from Mr. Hoover.”

  A few days later, Vaylie’s letter arrives, addressed in a fat loopy script that could only be hers. It’s post-marked Carrollton, Virginia and bears, in the top left corner, where the return address belongs, the heart-shaped greeting: Hello, Great-Aunt Maybelle!!!

  Miss Maybelle, who’s placed the envelope under her counter rather than in our box, points out the infraction sternly. “The U.S. Postal System frowns on any implication that one of its workers is taking familial advantage,” she lectures me.

  “I’ll write Vaylie right away and explain,” I promise.

  “That won’t be necessary, as I’ve already informed her mother!” Miss Maybelle snaps back.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Maybelle,” I say, attempting the appropriate remorse on Vaylie’s behalf. Miss Maybelle eyes me sharply, grading my sincerity. Apparently, I pass.

  “You didn’t do anything,” she says with that wave that means get on about your business.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I grin, then call, stopping her in mid-turn, “and, Miss Maybelle?” She scowls, impatient. “Thank you for introducing me to my new pen pal. I’ve never had one before.”

  “You’re welcome, Reesa,” she says, creasing her face briefly, not so business-like, in my direction.

  Inside the offending envelope, Vaylie writes:

  Dear Reesa,

  Whit and Claudette tracked us down in Winter Park, said c’mon home, so here we are! Boy, was Daddy glad to see us! He surprised Mamma with a new dinner ring, a big emerald the size of a snake eye! The real thing, not the marble—I’ve seen a rattler race and know the di ference. Mamma was as happy as could be until I opened my present—a new Rod Laver tennis racket.

  “The child’s already got more freckles than a field hand, why would you give her something that keeps her out in the sun, instead of away from it?”

  “ ’Cause it’s what she wanted,” Daddy said, and after that, they had a big ugly fight that I refused to listen to and left the room.

  I did talk to Mamma about coming back to Florida next time Daddy has a “spell,” but she said if it happens this summer, we’re heading north out of the heat and if it’s not ’til fall, she’ll have to take me someplace educational since I’d be missing school. Boston maybe, or Washington, D.C.

  Oh, Reesa, didn’t we have the BEST time together? I just hate that we live so far apart. Please write me just the SECOND you get this.

  Love, VAYLIE

  P.S. Do you think I have too many freckles?

  P.P.S. What kinds of things do your parents fight about?

  Chapter 13

  To tell you the truth, before Marvin’s murder, and the visit to our home by Mr. Harry T. Moore and Mr. Thurgood Marshall, I didn’t read the newspaper much, had no idea who they were. But now that we’re familiar, I notice their names often. The paper doesn’t think much of Mr. Moore’s efforts in Negro voter registration. It thinks even less of Mr. Marshall (“Mr. Civil Rights,” they always call him) for forcing the retrial of Walter Lee Irvin and Samuel Shepherd, the two young Negroes accused of raping a Groveland white woman last year.

  Since we met them, both Mr. Moore and Mr. Marshall have stopped by our packinghouse almost regular. When you compare the paper’s descriptions of them as the “strident insurgent” and “pugnacious parliamentarian” to the well-mannered gentlemen we’ve come to know, you have to wonder if the reporters ever actually talked to them.

  Sometimes they drop in together, sometimes separate, to exchange papers with Daddy, enjoy a cool drink and use our bathroom in the back.

  “You’ve no idea how rare access to a clean rest room is to a man of my color in this part of the country,” Mr. Marshall says.

  Mr. Harry T. Moore, the former schoolteacher, never fails to ask Ren and me about our homework. One day, he helped Ren master long division. Another time, when I was writing a report on Ancient Rome, he proved quite knowledgeable about the Caesars, Julius and Augustus.

  “Although,” he told me, “I much prefer the Greeks to the Romans.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, curious.

  Mr. Harry’s eyes lit up like twin headlamps. “Rome was a republic where only the rich had rights. But Greece! Greece gave us democracy—one man, one vote—the fairest form of government on earth! Greece gave us Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. Do you know Aristotle, Reesa?”

  I’d never seen Mr. Harry so spirited. “Not really,” I answered.

  “Aristotle was brilliant!” he declared. “Aristotle said democracy rises out of one very important notion—that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects. ‘Democracy,’ Aristotle said, ‘is best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.’ ” Mr. Harry stopped and raised his eyebrows in that teacher way that means Are you getting this?

  “And that’s why registering Negro voters is so important?”

  “You betcha, girl!” he beamed, and told Daddy I’d earned “an A for the day!”

  Fortunately for Ren and me, this school year’s wound down to its inevitable end, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.

  “It’s wrong to live in a state that’s half water and not enjoy it!” Mother exclaims, cajoling her wary, unwilling family out the door. Nobody wanted to come on this Memorial Day Picnic, but here we are.

  To Mother, a “picnic by the shore” on Memorial Day is an ironclad tradition, cast in her Midwestern childhood. To Daddy, Memorial Day, or any military holiday for that matter, is a painful reminder that his private war with polio left him unfit for the important battles against Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. Daddy prefers a private observance, away from the marching bands, strutting veterans and cheering crowds lining Main Street Opalakee today.

  The quiet cypress-rimmed cove off the St. John’s River seems no different from the last time we came, last year. But none of us are quite the same. Mitchell, for in
stance, can swim. He and Buddy plunge in eagerly after Ren, whose passion for baseball has been re-channeled into a daily scrutiny of the Brooklyns’ box scores. Last summer, Ren and Marvin hit no less than a hundred fly balls a day.

  Mother and Daddy, having set up camp, sit in the shade of our beach umbrella. Daddy scans one of the three newspapers he’s taken to reading regularly, clipping stories with his small fruit knife. These days, he’s constantly compiling files for Mr. Harry, answering lists of questions from Mr. Marshall. I don’t know what the questions are, but I do know that every answer must be three times verified by separate, unwavering sources. What will become of the answers puzzles me, too; but their careful completion has become my father’s second occupation.

  Beside him, Mother, festive in her blue polka-dot sun-dress, plays solitaire, shuffling and sorting, shifting and stacking. Now that Doto’s left us for Montana, and the awful events of the spring have given way to summer, she’s hoping, Mother says, for “some sort of normal.”

  A ways from my parents, I stretch out on my beach towel watching the water. The surface of the cove shines like metal, with dark emerald sparkles between the knees of the cypress trees. These days, I find myself watching everything, with the clear hope of not being caught unaware. Ever since Marvin’s murder, I’ve come to despise surprises:

  There in the cypress shadows, for example, a small, smooth log turns. Is it really wood? Or the slow, oily coil of a deadly water moccasin?

  Beyond the splashing boys, two dark bumps surface among the sheltered water hyacinths. Another log? Or the dangerous, double-lidded eyes of an alligator?

  Except for the turbulence trailing the boys, the water is a mirror, reflecting a bright blue sky, cottony clouds and the green lacework bowing the heads of the kneeling cypress. On its surface, the cove’s as peaceful as a prayer. But nothing is truly as it seems, I know. Not me, not Mayflower, not the whole entire world. And especially not old Miss Maybelle two doors down the road.

  I pull out Vaylie’s letter and read, again, the sorry sequel to the already sad tale: