Pay the Piper

by Joan Williams

  5

  Rick might have been a refugee child shipped off somewhere, he had so few possessions. Maybe a sack would have been all right, Laurel thought. When he threw his sea bag to his shoulder, it half collapsed. At the Delton airport’s magazine stand, he inquired how many boxing magazines he could buy. “As many as you want,” she told him. While she watched Rick, she thought of a visit they made here when he was five, before it became a regular trip with them. William had insisted she could not research a novel with a child to take care of, and insisted Rick be sent back to him when he had his vacation. She set Rick out at the terminal with his luggage and told him she was parking, a few feet away. But misunderstanding, he said, “’Bye, Mommy.”

  “Rick,” she had called then, stopping the car. And so long ago, she’d already thought he was taught too much independence. She well imagined the child, at five, going inside and departing. William was admirable in wanting her to succeed, in agreeing to take care of the child by himself. She had worried that other mothers she knew were not making research trips. But when the plane took off, she had a surge of relief about being alone, a startling new sense of freedom about being responsible to no one but herself. That time, when she turned Rick over to the stewardess for safekeeping, she had said, “His father’s meeting him in New York,” and had been teary at the thought of Rick flying away alone. The young woman with her perfectly painted face gave her a quick look and Laurel read her thought: divorce. She had tried to imagine parents regularly shipping a child back and forth between themselves, like air freight.

  “See you in Connecticut, Rick.”

  “Mom, don’t drive so fast the rest of the summer. And I’m sorry about that hat.”

  “It’s OK. If I die of a heat stroke playing tennis today, don’t worry about it.”

  “Some black guys are giving you the once-over. I don’t like it.”

  “I shouldn’t have worn my tennis dress to the airport. It’s not Delton etiquette. Most women I know here put on heels and stockings when they get up in the morning. Rick, you’ve got to change your underw—”

  “Basta.” He put a hand to her mouth.

  “Other mothers get to say things like that.”

  “You don’t want to be other mothers.”

  “Yes, I do. You and Dad are always trying to make me different.”

  She passed the young black men waiting in a ticket line, who gave her another once-over; she had to smile at their joviality and would like to set straight any Yankee who tried to say the South had not changed. She wondered what it would be like to sleep with a black man. She believed old Southern legends were crap—that black men were more sexually powerful, that white maidens secretly coveted them, and vice versa. She was amused by a small plot of ground outside the terminal, with a few green plants and a sign: YES, IT’S COTTON. Tired attendants must answer a lot of questions from people like Soundporters, who stepped off planes looking for cotton fields and put-upon bedraggled darkies; but who from Soundport would even come to Delton?

  Confronting the maze of parking lots with cars shimmering in the heat, unable to remember where she had parked, Laurel searched until she was ready to cry out to anyone who passed, “Have you seen a car with a Connecticut license plate?” Then she found it by mistake.

  This time, too, she had a sense of elation about having no one to see about but herself; Buff was pretty self-sufficient. She would not like freedom as a permanent condition, Laurel thought. She still worried about the time she spent at the typewriter when Rick was a baby, the hours he was told to stay out of her office. Once when he was two, he passed her at her desk and looked at himself in a full-length mirror in an adjoining room. “Get away, Rick. I’m working,” she heard him say to himself. Up she flew from the typewriter to ask William whether Rick would some day be complaining to a psychiatrist about her. Calling her a machine, she thought, the way William spoke of his own mother.

  It was William who had set her office hours and said nothing must interrupt them. And because of that, the time William broke his own rule her first thought had been annoyance. She remembered his sitting down in her office saying, “Laurel, we need to talk about what’s wrong,” and she left her fingertips poised on the keys, waiting for him to leave: thinking then, William, you made the rules; you could have talked to me later. Anyway, then she did not see all that much wrong with the marriage; they never argued. What she believed was that William had a disgruntlement in his personality and would have been disgruntled in any marriage. She only waited there to listen; to this day, she couldn’t remember anything that was said. She had the idea that William got up finally and walked out. Only in her mind’s eye she saw him twirling a brown hat with a darker band in his hands, and she could not recall William’s ever owning such a hat. So how much is memory worth?

  Laurel pulled into the Delton Country Club, no longer as it was in the past; now the charming old place, wicker rockers on its wide porches, had been replaced by a yellow brick building low to the ground that could be anywhere in the country.

  At least today she did not have to worry about older ladies saying, But who are your parents, dear? Where did they come from? as had happened to her in another time. Laurel went toward tennis courts reflecting sunlight as brightly as mirrors; eventually she complimented the other players on their stamina. Along with the ball crossing the net, she saw pink and green stars. Catherine laughed. “You know if we didn’t play in heat, we wouldn’t have many weeks to play.” In Soundport, anyone playing tennis in such weather would have been considered crazy.

  The club today made her think about Sallie MacDonald, née Parker, who had made a famous debut there when her clothes, flowers, decorations, and food had been pink; she had worn a little silver tiara. What had happened to Sallie and Hal that two people born with everything had their lives come to tragedy? Having known Sallie at Miss Poindexter’s, she could imagine she had continued to be a debutante since then. Probably she still wore Vaseline on her eyelids and stuck cotton balls soaked in perfume into her cleavage as girls did in those days. But she had a different concept of Hal after his article and his letter. She thought of him as deep, sincere, smoking a pipe, his hand resting on the head of a trusty hunting dog. At Catherine’s house after tennis, she had her first drink since leaving Soundport. “Some refinements of city living are nice.” She raised her vodka and tonic. When she left, Catherine’s husband insisted on walking her to her car. It was irritating to have him take her elbow as if she could not walk down steps by herself. “I can go alone, Henry,” she said.

  “I know that, but can’t I be a gentleman?” Henry leaned to her car window. “Where exactly is your cabin? I have to see a man in Whitehill about some lumber next Friday.”

  Was she going to have an affair with her best friend’s husband? Laurel did not want to be that kind of person. Yet always she wanted adventure of any kind: After her long, dry years with William, it was nice to be wanted. She gave Henry directions.

  On the way to Mississippi, she regretted that date. There was no way to break it; to phone Henry’s office, she’d have to give her name to his secretary. There was too much possibility in the intimacy of Delton that the secretary would tell Catherine her Connecticut friend phoned Henry, in an entirely innocent way. Never but once had William exhibited jealousy. But then, she never flirted; she didn’t know how. William used her typewriter and found a poem on her desk. “What’s this?” She told him it was a poem she wrote because it had occurred to her. “Oh. I thought you were writing it to some guy.” It had been a love poem to Edward. William was so unjealous, in fact, that after a month’s skiing trip, he looked at her in her slip, her figure slimmed to perfection, and said, “I didn’t know you had such a good body. You could make money off a figure like that.” She always thought William was suggesting high class prostitution, and that he’d be glad to share in the profits, due to the stringency of a magazine salary and the high cost of living in Fairfield County. William had asked her never t
o walk around naked; he thought nakedness took away mystery. Laurel could not have been so immodest, but thought they had enough mystery.

  Arriving back at the cabin, she wished she had never told Rick the old country belief that hanging a rattlesnake over a fence would cause it to rain; he had left her a legacy of dried ones.

  By morning, she could regret freedom; there was an emptiness to waking alone. She talked to Buff and was glad to get to town for the mail. Miss Ardella, the postmistress, said, “You caught one this morning, sugar.” She told her Mose Hathaway had been in talking about that woman always running for her health. “She looks healthy to me,” he said. Laurel did not stay to talk. She left the post office thinking of important milestones that happened here; here she had received a confirming letter from Mr. Woodsum about her suspicions. Now, this morning, she could hope Ardella did not noise it about that Laurel had received mail from the state penitentiary. She had a little thrill about Hal’s name with its number being on the front of the envelope—#78063. The paper was of poor quality. On the back of the envelope, she considered again something smudgy as a fingerprint. What headiness in this correspondence.

  July 24

  Dear Laurel:

  I was so happy to hear from you again. I read your book and loved it. The setting was like reading chapters from my own childhood. Before we moved to Mississippi, I used to spend summers there with my paternal grandparents in a similar place. This was back in the thirties, and on Saturdays there were more wagons and buggies around the square than cars and pickups. It was during the Depression, of course. I lived what I call my Tom Sawyer period and it was one of the happiest I’ve ever known. It sounds like your boy can still get a bit of it, and that’s good.

  No, there’s nothing on that sheet I need. My sister, Pris, keeps me supplied with food, and we draw $5.00 a week for cigarettes and Cokes. The state even gives us two bags of tobacco a week, but I have never learned to roll a cigarette I could smoke. The prison is quite strict about visitors but there is one way you could come to see me. I have a close friend—a freeworld person—who is head of AA. He could bring you in with the idea of your writing something about the prison. We could visit a short while and I’d be able to drive around the farm and see the different camps with you. I’ve done this with a friend from Delton several times. You can phone Buddy Richards here and make arrangements.

  Also, if you want to write to me and not have your letter censored, put it in an envelope, seal it with my name on it, and put it in another envelope to Mr. Richards. To settle your mind about this letter, I’m sending it out by him. I have learned there are ways to do about anything you need to if you are just patient. Most of the convicts have a million small ways to make life a little easier.

  Last Sunday I had my second visit from Sallie and our small daughter, Tina. It was agony, but only because I let myself hope for something that is apparently not to be. Both times when she’s come I’ve suffered a fit of depression for several days afterward, but like an illness, I get over it.

  Each camp is run separately and it depends on the camp sergeant as to how strict or lenient things are. Here we get all the letters we want, but can’t write too many, as he has to read them—and he’s a slow reader! About your list of books, I love to read and do so every evening despite the noise.

  The stationery does have a rosebud on it—in the name of God, I don’t know why. It was a shock to me the first time I saw it when I was being processed in the prison hospital. As part of my job, I’ve redesigned the paper and from now on it will have the state seal on it. Not as esthetic maybe, but not as ridiculous either.

  The penitentiary is extremely patriotic, which translates “ridden by politics.” I envy your being able to spend time alone in your remote and rundown cabin. One of the greatest pleasures I ever knew was to spend time by myself, and particularly hunting. I’ve spent whole days in the woods just watching deer and turkeys and have learned to call them up to within a few feet. I love people, but not by the dozens 24 hours a day. That was what nearly drove me wild when I first came here and was locked up in a cage for the first time. Even in jail I was kept separate from the others and had some privacy. I am more used to things now and we are only locked up at night. And I have more freedom as a trusty. Nearly everybody does something in the way of a hobby. There’s a lot of woodworking, and convicts sell their handicrafts. I play bagpipes! Every morning I go out to one of the old buses (they are called red houses and are used by the married prisoners and their wives) and practice for an hour. Can you imagine the nerve it took to do that the first time? I guess I’m thought of as something of a character, and no one wants to be the camp nut. Anyway, everybody’s gotten used to it and there’s no way to play bagpipes quietly. This letter is long, but it’s rare I can write to someone who has an interest in what is happening to me who doesn’t already know.

  There are many things I could tell you about here, without censorship. It’s old-fashioned; the camps are old and the furniture crude. Not at all like an installation of the federal government such as we had in the army. Most of the camp officials are old-time prison employees. They believe a convict is here to be punished and that rehabilitation is a waste of time. The superintendent doesn’t think this way.

  A lot has been done in the past few years to improve things. The whip is still used, though it is discouraged, and drivers don’t use them in the fields anymore. Legally, we can get seven licks, but after three it doesn’t matter, so they tell me. The mental torture goes on all the time, and there is no way to describe it. I came here determined to do what was expected of me, and more if possible. I decided no amount of insults, degradation, or unpleasant conditions could make me raise a complaint. I’ve asked for nothing, and received no bad treatment. Actually, I’ve known real kindness.

  Your friend,

  Hal

  6

  Going to the prison was the farthest she had ever gone into the Delta. She knew little about the region except its reputation for rich land and rich people. The land was rich because of the cyclic flooding of the Mississippi River, long years before its hard-won levee system. She had learned about that from her father and his friends. Wistfully, her father spoke about wanting to live in the Delta, and actually in Swan, the town nearest the MacDonalds’ plantation. Like most north Mississippians who had made it to the big time—Delton—her mother never wanted to return to anything approximating country. She saw no charm or beauty to it, having lived so long in fear of never escaping the yellow clay hills she came from. “The Delta,” her father had said, “where there’s the shanty or the palace but no in-between.”

  Laurel drove along a narrow highway running straight ahead and so flat it was like a plumb line measuring the distance to the oyster-shaped horizon all around. She tried picturing the countryside with Chinese in coolie hats and flat black slippers and thought of these people as forever alien to where they had come, brought here to build the first railroads. The Irish came later. She tried to picture her own ancestor, who was a lieutenant in the American Revolution and who had married an Irish girl. “Any knives, guns, or cameras?”

  In a moment, she said, “No,” still confronting the past while in this strange present. A boy who had been sitting in a chair at the prison’s entrance—only a stopgap bar across a driveway—got up from the chair. “I have to check your trunk and glove compartment.” He reached in for her keys. Instantly, she was apprehensive he would find forbidden things in those two places and never believe her innocent. A welter of objects fell out when he opened the glove compartment; an empty can of de-icer barely missed his toes. He eyed a plastic ice scraper and finally asked what the long-handled brush was she had on the back seat. “A snow brush,” Laurel said. “I don’t know what it’s still doing there.” Or in the Delta either, she might have added. The boy consulted a roster confirming her appointment and directed her toward the administration building. Relieved, she drove away from the highway and railroad track she had crossed to a
small brick building. A fountain spurted in front, and in its base were the largest, fanciest goldfish she had ever seen. But if this was prison, where were the people?

  Beyond her there were frame houses, which must be where prison personnel lived; their yards were full of clotheslines and kids’ toys and collared dogs roaming around. Why hadn’t she cleaned out that glove compartment? she asked herself, like mourning. Her parents were shaking their heads. So often, it seemed, she waited to be berated. In the largesse of silence, this could be anywhere on a peaceful country summer afternoon. She supposed she had expected a scene from an Edward G. Robinson movie, with him and George Raft leading a prison breakout, and she would be propelled into national prominence by some daring role in saving lives. Hadn’t she always wanted that—fame of some kind, however minor—because she believed that fame would cause her to be loved? In downtown Delton’s heyday the ornate Loew’s Palace was where she had pretended to be Shirley Temple dancing down its stately marble steps accompanied by Bill Robinson, while autograph seekers stood on the sidelines. Last summer she and Rick followed another of their rituals and went to a Clint Eastwood movie. The lights came on to reveal not only the seediness of the Palace but their two white faces in a sea of black ones. Pretending to be undisturbed, they went to their car and quickly locked the doors.

  “Mom. Were you scared?”

  “No. I just thought I ought to be. I did remember my friends kept telling me no white people go downtown in Delton at night. I thought them bigoted. But you find out: no white people go downtown in Delton at night.

  “Rick, in high school, Kevin Shea and another couple and I decided one night to visit a black funeral home. We were snickering white teenagers on a lark and walked in saying we wanted to look around. A courtly black man rushed up and said he’d be glad to show us everything. What else could he do? Can you imagine it? He wouldn’t have called the police. He was so nice, we were sorry we had come. He was sweating, and the place was dim and spooky, the lights were in red glass holders. He lived upstairs, and I’m sure we scared him coming in. He showed us a room where blood was drained out of people. Bodies were on slabs and had sheets drawn over them. One body had feet sticking out. They were whitish on the bottoms, like chalk was on them. But bluish, too. When we got in the car, nobody said anything. Then I remember Kevin saying, ‘Those feet really looked dead. I mean it’s like, dead is dead.’”