Aunt Dell did write later. Much later. A week or so before Easter. She said everything was “Totsy-turvy” (ha ha) because Roy was going to be transferred down somewhere south of Phoenix and they wanted to get out of their rented house when the rent was due and so she thought it was a good time for her to send the trunk and the suitcase and she’d just come along with them (ha ha). Of course, she didn’t say when.
“I suppose she’ll wire,” Mom said with a worried look.
“Well, you’d better write right back and make sure she knows we don’t have a phone so she can’t just arrive out of the blue and find us. The fourth orange tree on the left past the avocado grove on the right …” Dad shook his head. “Spell it all out plain for her. Tell her to come to Ventura, but for Christ’s sake let us know whether she’s coming on the bus, the train, or on roller skates. And when. She could get here and wander around for a month and we wouldn’t know it. And while you’re at it, you could write Ed and Edweeeeena and tell them to pray that she stays upright. On her own two feet.”
We still hadn’t heard from Aunt Dell when I was invited to spend the night before Easter at the Scrit’s and go with them to early mass the next morning. I’d never been in a Catholic church and I kept making Vic repeat to me just what I was supposed to do. “I don’t want to embarrass your whole family,” I said anxiously.
“Don’t worry. Stay close by me and do what I do. It’s simple.”
“Show me how to cross myself again.” He went through it patiently with me. “I can do it, if I only knew when to do it.”
We had a huge supper—steaming thick soup and lasagna, roast veal and vegetables, and a special cake called zabaglioni. They couldn’t eat again until after mass tomorrow morning. Nothing apparently, not even a glass of water till they’d had communion.
After supper, we four older boys went out to what they called their bunkhouse. That was something else I envied. It was private, had its own shower and toilet, was spartan, but neat and clean. It was where Vic and I did our homework at a long table along one side of the room, long enough for each of the boys to have their own work area, then bunk beds at one end and another larger bed, almost double on the wall opposite the table desk.
Vic’s stories of the sex they had together had me worried, anxious, frightened and eager all at the same time. What would it be like doing what we did with the other older brothers? I was so nervous, I went to pee twice while the boys got undressed and chatted quietly together. They all hung their clothes up neatly on wooden pegs on the wall and moved about easily with each other completely naked. Junior was never completely naked with me.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Aside from some jokes about sex, mostly about giving it up for Lent, nothing happened as far as I could see to confirm Vic’s wild tales of the sexual goings-on. I might as well have been at home with my own brother. Gino did drape a towel over his morning erection—not a concession to modesty, but to make a joke I didn’t quite understand about his cock having taken the veil. Perhaps they had given up everything for Lent.
The mass was a revelation. It was like going to a show. I loved the pageantry, the costumes, all the highly decorated plaster statues, gilded and gleaming with fresh paint. They weren’t quite as carefully painted as they might have been, as though the painters had been in a hurry. There were little globs of gilt that had run away from the bumps and ridges in the plaster where they belonged. The faces on the little dolls in plaster were almost a caricature of what a face should be. Eyebrows were slightly askew, eyes little daubs of color, not quite matching. One little angel was wonderfully cross-eyed. On either side of the big front altar were two identical ladies holding identical babies—the madonna and child—where the painters had really expressed themselves. The ladies’ faces were as garishly painted as if they were made up for the stage or some other more lurid profession. Their robes were of a blue so electric I’m sure they would give off shocks. There were golden stars painted in the background of the niche which held her and their halos were a tiny circle of real electric lights. Beautiful things, but as I looked from one to the other, I could make out that one was serenely innocent while the other had a definitely salacious smirk on her face.
I tried to keep my eyes on the ladies or the priest and his two young assistants and away from the crucifix in the center of the big altar. It bothered me. It was blindingly white so that the great glistening wound in Jesus’ side gushed a brilliant glossy red so intense in the flickering light it seemed to be moving, actually oozing down his middle and on down his legs. I kept glancing up at his pathetic pinioned feet convinced I saw the blood dripping off the end of his toes. It was terrifying.
The feeling of being in a theatre was further enhanced by the mystery of the service. I didn’t understand anything that was going on. My Latin was not quite fluent enough to follow it all, I told Junior very grandly later. What I did understand, the announcements the priest made from the beautifully carved wooden lectern, wasn’t very interesting. A lot of emphasis was on money— the donation hadn’t been up to par—in other words, the same things all preachers say.
“Did I do all right?” I asked Vic when it was over.
“You’re a born Catholic,” he assured me.
Momma Scrit said something to Gino in Italian and then laughed behind her hand, hiding her many gold teeth. “She wants me to tell you her favorite joke,” Gino said to me. He put his arms around her and hugged her to him. “She thinks this is the funniest story she ever heard, but she always gets it mixed up in English.” She laughed and made a gesture for him to go on and tell me. She watched and listened as though she were hearing it for the first time. It was about a non-Catholic man with a Catholic wife who finally went reluctantly to church with her for the first time. All through the service she was whispering, Sit down. Stand up. Make the sign of the cross. Kneel. Read this section. Do this and do that. Then all of a sudden she looks down at his fly and hisses, Is your fly open? By this time he’s disgusted with the whole thing and says, I don’t know. Should it be?
We all laughed, but Momma roared and slapped her thigh. She really did love it.
The theatrical season begun by my visit to the gentle little church in El Centro was continued the next day with the announcement by Western Union that a road show of sorts—anything but gentle—was on its way. Aunt Dell was on a Greyhound Bus somewhere between Phoenix and the west coast and was due in Ventura late Monday afternoon. And now here she was, talking and waving her hands through the window of the bus—the closed window of the bus before it had come to a stop. Mom hadn’t come with us so there’d be enough room for the trunk and suitcase in the back if I sat on Junior’s lap and Aunt Dell could ride in front.
I just knew she’d slip down the tall steps of the bus or slide in some heavy motor oil that spotted the floor of the dirty bus terminal but she didn’t. She managed to get to the car and in it without mishap. Dad reached across in front of her and gave the door an extra pull to make sure it was solidly shut. By the time we got her home, she’d covered her trip back to Missouri and Arkansas, her divorce from Jesse, the battle over the property, everybody’s health generally and her own in vivid detail.
She went back over all the stories for Mom aided by a bottle of whisky she and Dad shared: The divorce was a cinch—no longer a Slokum (“Too damned close to Yokum—that Cal Happ or whatever his name is has ruint that name for any poor fool unlucky enough to have it—Ma Yokum, Ma Slokum. Same thing. As far as that goes, he’s give all hillbillies a bad name.”), but she couldn’t do anything about division-of-property. All she got was a paper saying that if Jesse tried to sell, she’d get her share. Ed and Edwina were so deep into prayer-meetings that drowning was the only logical next step. Ronnie was running with a pretty fast crowd there in Blue Eye and Oak Grove—Junior Dodgen, Dorothy Hale, the Humbard bunch—drinkin’ quite a bit but he’s a good boy—“Oh, Tots!” she called to me in the kitchen where I’d gone for more ice water for their dri
nks. “Ronnie said special—‘Tell Tots I’ll see him before he knows it.’” For some reason my legs felt weak. Ronnie. He was the first one I’d—I even had difficulty saying it in my head—had sex with. I wondered what he’d think of me now. Would he approve of what Vic and I were doing? Of what Roy did? I knew he’d think that was tacky.
“I ought to get dinner ready,” Mom said and stood up.
“No, Milly, don’t go yet,” Aunt Dell was all but bouncing up and down on the daybed where she’d be sleeping. “I’ve saved the best part for last. You’ve got to listen to this. This is a real killer.” She patted the place next to her. “Come on. Tots! Get a glass for Milly. We’ll each have one more little swig—well, that’s about all they is left.” She blinked comically. “Where’d that all go to, Woody? You really been knockin’ it back.”
“Me?” Dad said incredulously. “You haven’t had your hand off that bottle long enough to allow me to have more’n a smell of the stuff.”
I got Mom a glass and she barely covered the bottom of it with whisky and then filled it to the brim with water.
“Well.” Aunt Dell’s eyes were glittering with excitement and mischief. “You ain’t going’ to believe this, but I swear it on a stack of Bibles. Well, I don’t even have to do that. It’s all over the county and Papa ain’t denyin’ it.” She stopped and looked at each of us over the rim of her glass to make sure she had our attention. We were riveted. It seems Grandpa had been “callin’ on” a widow that lived on the Green Forest road at the old Atchley place about four miles from Grandpa’s farm. He would cross the field there behind the Garner’s and cut off almost a mile of the walk, which he did every afternoon early, making sure he’d get home before dark and still have his little visit with Mrs. Youngblood. Of course he’d been takin’ a lot of teasing about this, but he’d just smile and agree with whatever anybody said. The Garners said they got so’s they could set their clock by that tall figure in his dark suit coat, big brimmed black hat, walking straight and steady toward the old Atchley place.
“But this last time,” Aunt Dell continued, “something’ seemed to go wrong,” She leered. “Or maybe it went too right.” She laughed like a child saying something naughty.
“For Christ’s sake, Dell, what happened?” Dad exploded. “So far, you’ve not made a lick of sense.”
“What happened?” Aunt Dell was looking wide-eyed. “Well, the old girl popped off, that’s what happened.” There was a stunned silence.
“You mean while Mr. Woods was there?” Mom asked.
“While he was right there,” Aunt Dell said, spilling a bit of her drink as she took a swallow. “Right there where it counts.”
The corners of Dad’s mouth were starting to twitch and his eyes started to twinkle as he leaned forward in the new rocker toward Aunt Dell, “You mean to sit there and tell me that she … that Papa was …” He started a slow laugh that built to a roar as he flung himself back in the chair with such force I thought it was going to topple over backwards.
“But, Dell…” Mom was glancing anxiously from me to Junior and back to Aunt Dell.
“Yep,” Aunt Dell declared, slapping her leg. “Heart attack. Kicked the bucket right then and there. Dead as a door-nail and naked as a jay-bird.” She and Dad hooted in unison. “And I guess Papa in his long johns runnin’ around like a chicken with his head chopped off. Cain’t you … just see? Imagine him … Oh Lordy, I like to’a died when I first heard …” She was reduced to uncontrollable laughter, tears streaming down her face.
“Why was she naked?” I asked when the roaring subsided.
“Why?” Aunt Dell let out a screech and collapsed backward onto the cushions.
“Were they having sex?” If you learn a new expression, you should use it, I thought.
Dad’s eyes widened with a where-did-you-pick-that-up look that included Mom in the question. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“The polite way,” Aunt Dell choked out.
There was a slight pause. “How old is Grandpa?” Junior asked quietly.
“Ooohh, God. Let me see,” Dad closed his eyes and concentrated. “I’m thirty-six, Dell’s …”
“Hush your mouth, Woody!” Aunt Dell screamed.
“… Daisy’d be fifty-something. Dad’s well over seventy.”
“Then I guess he’s old enough to know what he’s doing,” Junior said, standing up and heading for the kitchen.
“I can only hope that I’m my daddy’s own boy,” Dad said with a chuckle. “Still gettin’ it up at seventy …”
“Gettin’ it up is one thing,” Aunt Dell’s words were getting a bit slurred. “It’s the actual gettin’ it that counts.”
“Totsy,” Mom said, standing up decisively. “Get the sack and go get some fresh limas.”
“Oh, Mom. Do I have to?” I whined.
“You’re over twelve years old now. When I tell you to do something I mean for you to do it. And one thing I am not going to stand from you or anybody else is whining. It puts my teeth on edge.” She was out-of-sorts and she was taking it out on me. It was Mom’s opinion that Aunt Dell’s recent emancipation—from the soil, from Jesse, from the Ozarks—had gone a bit to her head and she sometimes lost sight of that fine line between being … well, vulgar and tacky and knowing when not to use certain words and phrases. Dad said she just had a good-ole-boy complex and sometimes went off the mark in her effort to appear modern and up-to-date.
I hated picking those lima beans. I always felt like a thief. Even though that bean patch I used to walk beside going to school belonged to the Alligator Ranch and we had permission to pick what we wanted, I couldn’t help feeling conspicuous out there in a sea of knee-high beans picking the young succulent pods. If there’d been a whole bunch of people like there was when they harvested, it would have been OK. But one lone figure, bending over could only be taken for one thing; somebody stealing beans.
I’d roll up the brown paper poke into a tight little wad and walk with straight-backed purpose into the field, trying to appear as though I were just taking a short-cut from one side to the other. Once in a good spot, I’d dart looks in all directions to make sure no cars were coming or nobody could see me and I’d suddenly drop to the ground as though I’d fallen into a deep hole or trap. Then, crawling along on my stomach, I’d pick the beans, wriggling along like a snake—and often wondered what I’d do if I came face to face with one or rather eye to eye with one at that level—until I’d filled the bag. Then, ever so carefully, I’d peek up over the tops of the plants and when the coast was clear, jump up as though shot up in the air by a spring and walk with that same straight-backed determined gait until I was out of the field and then I’d run as fast as I could up the lane through the fruit trees, with almost that same feeling of fear in my chest that I got at night returning from outhouses—that somebody or some thing might be chasing me. In this case, I imagined a policeman arresting me for stealing lima beans.
Aunt Dell was decidedly shaky in the morning and laced her coffee generously with whisky from a new bottle. I began to wonder if her whole suitcase was filled with bottles since she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn yesterday, but she explained that by saying, “Couldn’t make the effort even to decide what to put on. Easier to just put on these dirty old things than have some sort of nervous breakdown makin’ decisions.” She refused any breakfast, even toast, becoming her sprightly self after her second cup of … well, the first one was coffee laced with whisky, the second was whisky laced with coffee.
Dad had taken the day off to visit with Aunt Dell and we’d made elaborate plans to fill the day. Junior and I would go see “Frankenstein’s Monster” at a special kiddie’s morning show in Ventura while Dad drove Aunt Dell and Mom around local sights, mostly consisting of the Pacific Ocean.
We had to wait ten minutes to get into the noisiest place I’ve ever been in my life. I think Junior, at fourteen, was the oldest member of the audience—he was certainly the biggest—and the
rest were hysterical children who were working up to being terrified by the monster by screaming and trying to scare each other before the film started. When the film finally started the storm noises over the scary castle could scarcely be heard above the din coming from the theatre.
We didn’t hear Dad when he leaned over and called to us, it was only when he put a hand on each of our heads and tugged our hair—thereby causing me to add a fairly bloodcurdling scream to the general bedlam—that we knew we were being hauled out of the movies. Would we ever be able to watch a film all the way through?
We followed him up the aisle and knew by the set of his shoulders that something serious had happened. He was walking so fast we both had to take little skipping steps to keep up with him. When we got to the lobby and could hear ourselves think, Junior tugged on Dad’s arm and said, “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“Your Aunt Dell,” he said through clenched teeth. “Fell.” He hit the word with a note of disgust in his voice which implied “wouldn’t you just know it?”
“Fell?” Junior asked as though he’d never heard of her falling in her life. “Where?” That was what I was wondering. Who was she going to sue now?
“Where?” Dad repeated. We were out on the sidewalk. “Where do you think? Fell out of the fuckin’ car! Our car!”
“Sort of slipped on the running board?” Junior was trying to get the story. Dad was not helping much.
“Slipped?” He shot a look at Junior. He was in a rage. “Slipped, he says.” He lifted both hands helplessly from his sides and let them drop limply. “Shit, no. Slip? Do something as simple as slip? Sheee-it! She flew out that door like she was takin’ off for a flight across the Pacific.” He shook his head. “Naw siree. Her and Amelia Ear … nose and throat or whatever her name was. I mean she was flyin’.” He was enjoying himself now, the edge of his anger dulled by his story-telling. “I went around a corner, the door snapped open and away she went, arms flappin’, legs kickin’, skirt up over her head and then landed like a big sack of potatoes—ka-flub—and was a-rollin’ around in the sand like a hog-tied steer.”
In Tall Cotton Page 26