Catfish

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  “Yeah. That’s him. I gotta go, Rodney. I’ll tell Marianne you called.” She hung up. Rodney said he looked at the receiver and heard the buzz of the dial tone. He left it dangling from its silver coil and stepped into the lobby of his dorm. It was Friday. He threw some clothes in a backpack, got in his old, blue Mustang and set out for Jean Ville.

  *

  I was nervous about being back home. This was only my second trip to Jean Ville in almost four years. My last trip home got me a black eye that, thankfully, healed before I returned to New York. On that trip I’d only been home two weeks. I was petrified about what might happen if I spent the entire summer in Jean Ville. But I was secretly glad to get away from Gavin. I’d told him we needed to move on. We’d grown apart after I refused the two-carat diamond ring and moved to Boston for those few weeks. Gavin argued, pleaded for another chance, told me how much he loved me, adored me, but I knew I couldn’t trust him.

  There were some good things about being home for the summer. I got to see my siblings and grew to know my baby brother, Albert, who was now almost four. I sneaked off to see Marianne in the Quarters and we’d have lunch together in the cafeteria at the hospital when she worked day shift. I didn’t care what people thought. I considered myself free, even if I was staying at my parents’ house. Anyway, Marianne looked white, I told myself.

  The best thing about being home was I got to spend time with Catfish. I went every week, sometimes twice a week and didn’t care who knew. I was emboldened by my college degree and full-time job. I thought I was protected from Daddy’s wrath by people like Dr. David and Mr. Michel and I didn’t worry about Rodney or his family since we weren’t seeing each other and Rodney wasn’t even in Jean Ville that summer.

  Catfish was older, slower and wore out quicker, but he told me more stories, a little at a time. He told me about how he met his wife, Alabama, and about how she died and how much he still missed her. He talked about losing his mom and dad. He said his mother, Mary Williams Massey, was the daughter of Maureen, the housekeeper at Shadowland and that she learned to read and write from the pastor and his wife at the Legion Baptist Church.

  “Mr. Van would give all the workers Sundays off. Now, Mrs. Van, she didn’t like that none, and Bessie, the cook, would fix a big breakfast and leave dinner on the stove for the noon meal. Then she’d go on back while the rest of us’d be having a hoedown or a singing revival and fix the Vans some liver and grits or cous cous with crackling for supper.

  “My Mama and Daddy, Maureen, Bessie, heck, all the folks in the Quarters, we’d walk to the Legion Baptist together on Sunday mornings. It was bout three miles, and the women would bring covered dishes and we’d have a picnic after the service while the preacher’s wife would sit with Mary and teach her how to read the bible. That started when she was about five, and when she was about eight or nine and my daddy was thirteen or fourteen, the older folks would head on back to the Quarters and leave daddy to walk Mary home, cause the lessons was taking longer and longer. That’s when two things happened to my daddy. First, he sat in those lessons and he learned to read, write and figure numbers hisself. Second, he fell in love with Mary, though he says it weren’t till she was bout thirteen or fourteen. When she turned fifteen—by then he was twenty—he axed Mr. Van could he marry her.

  “Mama and Daddy made sure all of us learned to read and write, too, and Mama, she started the first colored school in Jean Ville at the Legion Baptist. That was before 1920 when she was just sixteen, seventeen. I think. Now here we are, some fifty years later and the state’s got schools for our kids. Ain’t that something?”

  Catfish told me about the other people who lived on Shadowland Plantation, George, Big Bugger, Lizzie and others who came in and out of Samuel and Sammy’s lives. And he told me stories about the Vans, stories told by the house maids.

  Each time I left Catfish, sitting in his rocker, eyes closed against the filtered sunlight, his grandchildren playing in the yard, crisp white sheets hanging on the clothesline, I’d kiss him on the cheek and hug his neck. He’d grin, but he never kissed me or even touched me, except to squeeze my hand ever so slightly when I put mine in his.

  I’d go home and write everything I could remember in ruled composition books I was saving for the time when I could write Our Book.

  *

  Marianne told me that Rodney was in summer school in Baton Rouge. All the better, I thought. We can’t see each other, anyway. Too risky and, we were finally over each other, I thought. We needed to keep it that way. He was constantly on my mind and I wondered whether I missed Rodney or missed the memory of him. I felt he had moved on, too; and I didn’t want to disrupt his life.

  After I’d been home about a month, I went to the Quarters after work on Friday at about four o’clock. I was sitting on the porch with Marianne and Catfish. He tried to tell us a story about how his daddy fell in love with his mother, who worked up at the big house, but Cat was weak and had a hard time completing sentences, so we ended up sitting together and watched a few of the children jump rope and listened to the sounds of summer.

  I heard a familiar noise, a car engine that sounded like a sewing machine. I’d have known that sound anywhere. I looked at Marianne who gave me a guilty sideways glance before she got up and helped Catfish into his house. I watched in disbelief and fear as Daddy’s familiar olive-green Mercedes drove up to Marianne’s house. I saw Tootsie look out her kitchen window. That’s when I realized it must be after five o’clock. Tootsie was home from work. I was scared to death. Someone must have told Daddy where I was and he came to find me in the Quarters! I climbed off the side of the porch to hide and plan my escape.

  I watched in disbelief as Daddy climbed the steps of Tootsie’s cabin and entered her backdoor without knocking. I looked at Tootsie’s kitchen window and saw my daddy embrace Tootsie, then the two of them turned and walked out of my eyesight and got lost in the bowels of the little house.

  Marianne came out of Catfish’s back door and I whispered for her to join me in the trees on the side of the house.

  “How long have you known?”

  “A long time,” Marianne said.

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t tell nobody. Don’t talk about it.”

  “I can’t believe it. Not that I don’t believe my dad would do something so dirty, but because you and Tootsie have known and didn’t tell me.”

  “How we gonna tell you your daddy and my mama been doin it?”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Long as I been alive, I guess. I never known it any other way.”

  I had to get out of the Quarters before Daddy re-emerged so I made my way home along the tree lines behind the houses on South Jefferson Street. I ran the entire way. I was out-of-breath when I threw myself across the bed in the huge blue room that felt like it shrank to the size of a matchbox and pressed around me. I could smell the salt and mucous run from my eyes and nose as I squeezed the feather pillow and breathed in dust mites and mildew.

  I was shocked and devastated about Daddy and Tootsie.

  I felt more betrayed by Tootsie than by my daddy and was hurt that Marianne had lied to me. Even Catfish must have known and didn’t tell me. Anger grew inside me as I thought about how my daddy had kept me from the Quarters with his high-handed rules, yet he went there.

  The worst of it was that the very people I thought I could trust and who I believed loved me, the ones I considered my family more than my own flesh and blood, those people I loved most in the world, had betrayed me. I wondered if Rodney knew, too. That would finish me off.

  The more I thought about Daddy and Tootsie, the more confused and deflated I became.

  Did Daddy know about Rodney? Had Tootsie told him. Was she the leak? Was Daddy the one who alerted the Klan? I tried to reconstruct the timing of the KKK incident with the Thibault family. It was a few days after Rodney had talked to me at the Cow Palace. He only spok
e to me for a few seconds, and my daddy beat me within an inch of death for it.

  Didn’t Rod say they thought I was going to die? No one ever mentioned the incident afterwards—the last sacraments, my hospital stay, the bruises and broken bones that healed slowly, or the emotional scars the whole thing left on my soul. It was as if it never happened. And the Klan’s visit to Rodney’s house when I came home that first Christmas and we saw each other in the hayloft? What about that incident—the visit that ended our relationship. Who alerted the Klan then?

  I wondered what else I didn’t know. How long had this been going on between Daddy and Tootsie? I thought about what Marianne said, “Long as I been alive, I guess. I never known it any other way.” What could that mean?

  *

  I joined my family at the huge round kitchen table for dinner that evening but I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t swallow. Something felt stuck in my throat and my chest hurt so bad I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d had a heart attack. I couldn’t look at Daddy knowing he’d just been with Tootsie and was now sitting at the table as if everything was perfectly normal.

  I was in trouble for not cleaning my plate, but I knew I would throw up if I swallowed even one bite of lasagna, so I excused myself and ran to the bathroom. Before I reached the door Daddy was on me like a pancake on a griddle.

  “Your mother worked all afternoon to prepare lasagna because she knows it’s one of your favorites and you didn’t eat it. How dare you treat her that way.” I hated lasagna, always had. However, that’s not why I didn’t eat it.

  I looked at him and wanted to spit in his face. He disgusted me.

  He slapped me across the face but I didn’t feel it, nor did I respond. That made him angry so he slapped me again, and again, until I fell to the floor. Then he started to kick me. I rolled into a ball and thought about Rodney and the last time we were together, when we made love. I thought about the week he spent in New York—that glorious, wondrous time that was like a dream I could fold myself into so I didn’t feel my father’s kicks and slaps. I thought about how wonderful it was with Rodney, and how different it was from Gavin. I remembered when I knew I was pregnant and how it felt to carry Rodney’s child inside me. I thought about Josh Ryan and his kindness, how he’d stuck with me through it all, but in the end, he couldn’t stomach what I’d done and who I’d done it with. And I thought about the little girl in the picture, her wide grin and amber eyes.

  That’s what I thought about when I was on the floor in front of the bathroom door, being kicked. My baby was almost two years old, walking, saying words, playing patty-cake. She would be beautiful, like her daddy. She would be loving and gentle and kind and she would love me, unconditionally, forever.

  When I woke up from the beating, it was dark and I was in my bed. I tried to sit up, but everything hurt, so I lay back and tried to sleep. It was Friday night. The next morning I sneaked into the bathroom to look at myself. Well, I couldn’t go to work like that on Monday. I had two black eyes and cuts on both sides of my face, one needed stitches. One finger was definitely broken and I had difficulty taking deep breaths. I could barely walk and everything hurt.

  I got two aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and tiptoed back to my bedroom. I dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, grabbed my purse and slipped out the front door. The sun had not risen but there was a yellow glow in the distance, suggesting a new, clear day. I felt it was an omen and stopped under the huge live oak, moss draped almost to the ground and listened to a red bird sing, then a sweet tweet reply from the tall pine across the street. Love birds, I thought. Yes, a new day. I’m done with my old life.

  I knew Dr. David would be awake. He went to the hospital to make rounds early, even on Saturdays. I walked across the street and rang the doorbell. He answered it, took a long look at me with sad eyes, his bushy eyebrows lowered and drawn in to the bridge of his nose. He inhaled deeply and put his arm around me then he gently pulled me inside and closed the door. Without a word he led me into the den and motioned for me to sit on the large, white sectional. If it hadn’t been leather, I would have been afraid to stain the beautiful sofa with the blood that seemed to come from various places.

  Dr. David went into his study, adjacent to the den and came back with his medical bag. He didn’t say a word, but went straight to his work, I thought, like the Santa Claus I once believed in. He gave me a shot near the cut on my cheekbone, then stitched it up with tiny, neat sutures. He set my finger and began to treat each cut, bruise and bump, systematically. He unbuttoned my blouse and pulled it open just enough to reach the abrasions, then he worked on the other side, then my back. I stood and he pulled my jeans down so he could treat my butt and the tops of my legs. Every now and then, I’d feel a little stick and he’d take a few stitches. Finally, he listened to my breathing with his stethoscope and told me I had a few cracked ribs. I pulled up my shirt and he wrapped an Ace bandage round and round my torso, below my breasts.

  When Dr. David was done, he gave me a pill and led me to the first bedroom off the hall. He pulled back the covers and I got in the comfortable bed. He sat next to me on top of the feather-filled duvet and put one big, burly hand on either side of me. His face was above mine, the kindest expression I’d ever seen spread across its entirety—eyes, forehead, nose, mouth, chin, and the hint of dimples in his cheeks, not deep because his smile was only a kind grin.

  “You don’t have to tell me what happened. I know. I’m so sorry. I should have stopped this long ago. Each time, I guess I tried to tell myself that it would be the last time. Then you moved away and I was relieved. When I saw you at the hospital this week, I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  I looked at him while he talked. My eyelids began to feel heavy.

  “You were very brave to come here this morning, Susie. You did the right thing.”

  “I want to go to work Monday, Dr. David. I don’t care what I look like. I’m tired of hiding his dirty work from the town.”

  “You can stay here with me and Erma this weekend. I’ll take you to work Monday and we’ll make a plan for the rest of the summer.”

  I was sleepy now. I wanted to thank him, but I couldn’t keep my eyes opened.

  *

  I enjoyed my job at Jean Ville General Hospital. I was a general flunky and assistant to the CEO, Mr. Michel whom I liked very much, in fact, I liked all the people at the hospital and my work was fun, varied and easy. They paid me well because I had a college degree. I was determined to save every penny.

  I went to work that Monday with stitches in my face, left knee, right elbow and several places on my back. I had black eyes and a broken finger, lots of bruises and hematomas. It hurt to take deep breaths, but I’d had a restful, peaceful weekend with the Switzers and felt well enough to work. When Mr. Michel asked what happened, I shrugged and said, “Ask Dr. David. He treated me.” I got lots of stares and the older nurses wanted to pamper and baby me, but I shook it off and did my job. I’d been through much worse.

  At noon Dr. David found me in the cafeteria and pulled me aside.

  “I met with your dad. You can go home and expect to be safe the rest of the summer; unless you prefer to stay with me and Erma. We are happy to have you.”

  “I couldn’t impose. You’ve done so much already.”

  “No, Susie. I didn’t do enough. I should have put a stop to this years ago. I’m done with that, though and I’d like to make it up to you. Stay with us.”

  “I’ll think about it, Dr. David. But please know this—I appreciate you more than you could ever know. Somehow I knew I could trust you and you didn’t let me down. Thank you.

  “By the way, Dr. D, when I was in the hospital a few years ago, a certain colored boy came to visit me one night. You wouldn’t have had anything to do with setting that up, would you?” Dr. David blushed and stared at me, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. I gave him a quick hug around the neck and left the room.

  I went hom
e the next week and no one discussed my appearance or asked where I’d been. No one talked to me much, at all, which was fine with me.

  I went to see Marianne the following Friday, after work. I just drove there and didn’t try to hide. After all, if Daddy could do it in the open, why couldn’t I? Marianne told me that Rodney had come home the previous weekend looking for me, but no one seemed to know where I was, not even Tootsie.

  Bile rose in my throat and tears stung the insides of my eyelids as I thought about the deception that Tootsie and Marianne had pulled off.

  “I want to know why you’ve lied to me,” I said. Marianne just looked at me, then tears began to stream down her face.

  “You don’t get it, do you? I never lied to you. I hate him. Telling you means saying it to myself.” My anger began to melt as I watched Marianne’s tortured heart break.

  “He’s a bastard,” Marianne said.

  “I agree, but he is my father. We only get one.” Marianne looked at me in the most peculiar way. “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t you know? Don’t you get it?”

  “What, Mari? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “You know, Susie.” Marianne said. “You a smart girl. Figure it out.” I just looked at her. Maybe my mind couldn’t grasp it. Maybe my heart wasn’t ready. I searched her face for a clue, anything.

  “When?”

  “Since I was born, you fool!” Marianne got up and walked toward the barn. She moved fast and her arms swung high, her knees bent as if she was marching, her chin was tilted toward the tops of the sugar cane.

  I sat in Catfish’s chair and rocked back and forth slowly. I needed to think. I breathed the fresh, clean air in the Quarters and tried to relax. I thought about things, like who told my daddy about my trips to the Quarters, and who told the Klan about Rodney. I wondered in my heart if Daddy was responsible for tipping off the Klan. If so, who told Daddy? I was plagued by my dad’s relationship with Tootsie and thought there must be a connection.