In Tall Cotton
Page 39
I told Aunt Dell about the fiesta last night, how much I’d enjoyed the dancing and might go back tonight since one of the boys I’d met was teaching me some steps. I kept my eyes on her and Becky until Roy interrupted. “The boy? The dancing boy? Was he curly haired?” Roy asked. “Named Juan?” His blue eyes were sparkling with mischief. A little secret smile—was it of triumph?— was pulling at the corners of his mouth. What did he know about Juan?
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Works at our office.” He grinned and shrugged as he headed for the icebox and more beer. His little smile developed into a knowing one as his eyes slid past mine.
That clinched it. I would go to the fiesta tonight no matter what happened. I had to find out if Roy did with Juan what he did with me. If so, he was really queer. “I’ll go get rid of this sweaty load,” I said, taking Becky back to the sitting room, “and then come help you put that stuff away.” If Roy really was a queer, I suddenly felt sadly sorry for Aunt Dell. I knew she’d never be able to under stand anymore than Dad would Roy’s … well, Roy’s flaw. Roy knew it too. That’s why he was so afraid of her finding out. If he took chances of being found out with me and perhaps Juan, how many others were there? There’d been others in the past, he’d said so. But if there were more in the future, how long would it be before he made a really big mistake and got caught with the wrong person. If it were somebody else who blew the whistle on him, some young kid and Roy carried out his threat only to wind up in jail for the rest of his life. Then perhaps I’d be able to breathe easily. He wasn’t afraid of jail. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He said his life would be over anyway. Oh God. Was there no way out? All I could think of was it was up to Roy to save us all—particularly himself—by keeping his hands off boys. Poor Aunt Dell may be a mess but she is good-hearted and generous and loves us. My thoughts about her earlier seemed harsh in the light of the tightrope existence I now knew she was facing. She’d die of humiliation and shame if Roy created a scandal. Here we all were with our flaws, fissures, weaknesses and shame nakedly revealed. At least revealed to me. I knew too much. Too much for my own good. Was this part of growing up? I knew I was growing up enough to know that our flaws—since we all have them—are supposed not to hurt anybody else. Flaws should be a private anguish, not to be shared. The least we can try to do is keep them to ourselves. I prayed particularly—selfishly, I guess—that Roy would keep his under lock and key.
I say we all have a flaw, but I couldn’t think what Mom’s was. Perhaps like Junior she was flawless. I didn’t want to imagine what Becky’s might be. She’d already caused me enough worry.
“Mom and Dad not back yet?” Aunt Dell called after me.
“Not yet.” Then I saw our Ford pull up to the front of the house as I passed the hall door. “Oh yes, here they are now,” I called over my shoulder. I moved down the hall and opened the door. I could hear Aunt Dell and Roy moving in behind me and then heard Sister’s houseshoes thumping down the stairs. I stepped out onto the porch. Sister stepped out behind me while Aunt Dell held the screen door open with Roy peering over her shoulder. The cement paving slanted from the porch steps down to the sidewalk along the street so we were more or less looking at the tops of their heads, their faces hidden as they got out of the car.
Becky jerked her head away from her bottle, bounced in my arms and reached toward the approaching figures. “Momma! Momma!” she called.
Mom stopped, head still down. Dad took two quick paces and took her by the arm. In a flash I knew what Mom’s flaw was. Her only flaw. It was Dad. They didn’t look at each other, they looked up at us. It was written on their faces as clearly as if they’d screamed.
“Oh my God,” Aunt Dell gasped, hardly audibly.
Junior was dead.
IN TALL COTTON
A novel about growing up and growing wise
— two very different things.
Hulse’s first novel is a fresh, moving and memorable account of the gradual sexual awakening of Carlton ‘Totsy’ Woods a child of the Depression …
Hulse masterfully captures the inextricably linked responses of fear, shame and pleasure that characterize the discovery of sex, in a ground-breaking novel that is several notches above the level of most popular fiction.
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An American boyhood beautifully told.
— Leonard Cohen
poet and song writer
He [Hulse] has created a memorable character in Totsy, his fifteen year-old narrator, full of youthful love and laughter and insatiable sexual curiosity … .
Hulse writes with a light comic touch and a poignant love for his characters.
— Gordon Merrick
Author, THE LORD WON’T MIND, etc.
… this funny, tragic, wonderfully written novel is about wisdom that is earned out of appetite, ignorance, fear, guilt and finally love.
— Jane Rule
Author, DESERT HEART, etc.
This is a wise and witty book, full of humor and warmth.
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
— Jean-Pierre Aumont
Actor, Author, SUN AND SHADOW, etc.