The Holdout

by Gracjan Kraszewski

  “Where’s David?” I ask Martha, grimacing as I rub the sore spot.

  “Oh, he’s still inside,” Martha says. “Talkin’ to the preacher bout somethin.”

  The Lamoruexs hold a post baptism reception of sorts at City Bagel. Most of the people who were at the baptism are here and some who weren’t at the baptism have come as well. I sit at a table with three guys. Two are Gary’s friends and one is a colleague, a fellow graduate student, from the history department. You know the Lamoreuxs, what? I ask Aiken Harrison. Yes, he says, smiling and just as surprised that I know them. Aiken’s mother works with Melanie in the MSU Student Affairs office. He’s been friends with them for a while. Aiken is originally from South Carolina, somewhere in the low country, but moved to Starkville when his parents moved here. I forget how long ago, I think while he was still in high school. Aiken finished high school in Starkville and then returned to South Carolina for college—the University of South Carolina for his bachelor’s degree, the College of Charleston for his master’s.

  Aiken is doing a PhD at Mississippi State about the effect of bluegrass music on Southern culture, something like that. Aiken is an accomplished musician himself. And by accomplished I don’t mean decent, I mean he was on tour for three years professionally. I know music like most people: sounds good it’s good, sounds bad, not good. But even ignorant me can tell Aiken is a maestro. I’ve heard him play banjo a few times now, he’s even done it at a departmental function, and it’s just fantastic.

  Aiken is the most southern person I have ever met in my life. He’s not just Southern but Nullification Crisis South Carolina Southern. He dresses flawlessly and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in any other pants except slacks. He is usually wearing a dress shirt, a tie even when one is not required, his shoes are spotless clean, and his manners are impeccable. He’s the kind of guy who probably works out in a tuxedo and doesn’t show a bead of sweat doing it, ready to go straight from the gym to Lord Grantham’s estate for dinner.

  I can’t even explain how perfect his manners are but it’s so over the top perfect that when I first met him I though he was putting me on, pulling my leg. “Allow me tah get that door fah ya, suh. Now don’t trouble yourself, now. Allow me to get ya chair. Very good. May I be of any other service?” We were having lunch after class in the Student Union’s Chick-Fil-A.

  Aiken is also one of those interesting Southerners who is more Catholic than most Catholics but remains a Protestant. He is a diehard conservative and traditionalist who thinks the greatest time in human history was Middle Age Europe, in particular the 13th century. He loves to read the Church Fathers (St. Ignatius of Antioch is his favorite), is a passionate defender of the Crusades, and thinks that the Protestant Reformation was “ a great disaster.” He refuses to call himself a Protestant saying he is “just a Christian,” a Christian who wants to be part of the original design of “the New Testament Church.” Yet he has told me repeatedly that he has no interest in becoming Catholic. Why he doesn’t become Catholic is to me a paradox that, to borrow one of Aiken’s favorite phrases, will make ya’toungue slap ya brains out.

  The other two guys at our table are Dale Carpenter, who does something in the medical profession and knows Gary that way, and Cord Hamilton. Cord is an insurance salesman in town with political ambitions. He looks and acts so much like a politician and I mean that as a compliment. He has the winning smile, the firm handshake while he smiles and looks you in the eye— the old time way, square in the eye honest as Mayberry—that makes you immediately think, almost reflexively, yes, I’ll vote for you. You’re not running? Can I write you in? Dale and Cord both attend First Baptist church. Yes, they tell me, we know DeShaun Stevens. Great pastor, even better preacher.

  Dale is married to Lori. Cord is married to Jenny. The wives sit a few tables over with Melanie because some things never change and it doesn’t matter how much whoever might want it to, however badly whoever might try to convince whomever that women like talking about sports as much as men, that men care or are supposed to care about buttermilk white or eggshell white paint for the nursery walls, but things are as they were and most likely will continue to be.

  “I have a question for y’all,” Dale says. “Why do you think people secretly like when bad things happen to other people?”

  “What?” Cord asks, putting down his coffee and smiling. It’s immediately apparent that he likes discussions, of any kind, and this sounds interesting. “What do ya mean?”

  “Like,” Dale searches for the words, “like, ya’know. The thought of anything happenin’ to your child, even burnin’ a finger on the stove, is horn-a-fying. But wouldn’t it be interesting if a hydrogen bomb blew up a city somewhere? Terr-able. Tsar Bomba type 50 megatons of TNT type’thin. I’m not hopin’ for that, no. But, ya’know, wouldn’t it be just…interesting?; if a city somewhere far away from you, a city where ya’didn’t have any family, was obliterated over night?”

  Cord says nothing, sips coffee. Aiken chimes in, “I’m nah followin’. Ya mean like ya think people do like these things?”

  Dale nods. “Yeah, unfortunately. And secretly too, no one would admit’it. But how many people watch NASCAR ta’see a crash? Watch the news ta’hear somethin’ awful. Nothin’ but awful stuff on the news, everyone knows that—

  “Okay,” Cord says, “so your askin’ why people think this way, like what’s behind it?”

  “Exactly,” Dale says.

  “I think’s it’s human nature,” Cord says, “people juss like bad things because they make ya’blood run, sometimes run cold, wakes ya up a little bit.”

  “That’s what I mean. Exactly. This bomb blows up this city and you don’t know nobody there. Anykind of fears of personal loss, of something affecting your family, is gone. So you just watch it like it’s a movie.”

  “Like a thriller,” Aiken says, “Yeah, I’see what ya’mean. Not affectin’ ya personally so ya watch it like ya would a thriller movie.”

  “But iss real,” Dale says.

  “That it’s real is the whole point,” I say, joining the conversation. “Right? That it’s real is the whole thing that, like you said,” I point to Cord, “the thing that makes your blood really run cold. The tragedy hasn’t affected you personally, not your family, not your friends, and so like you say, Dale, people watch it with this macabre detachment like they’re watching a horror movie. But that it’s real makes it all the more terrifying. Even the most realistic horror movies are fake, they’re movies. But this is a real life horror movie and one happening to someone else so you revel in it. If it wasn’t real it wouldn’t be as exciting.”

  “Thas a pretty repulsive view of humanity doan ya think, Rhett?” Aiken says.

  I shrug. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah. It is,” Cord says, “but is it not true?”

  Dale shrugs and nods affirmatively.

  “Look,” Cord continues, “why does CNN or Fox air coverage of a tragedy for like three, even four weeks after it’s happened? The story’s been told. Thah facts the story been told the first five times. Everyone has ‘em. Move on. But,” he pauses, “they don’t. They don’t move on because this type of stuff sells, right? How sick is that? Real people are suffering immensely and they keep talking about it over and over, keep this real life horror movie on’a-loop.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” Dale says, “that’s exactly my whole question. Why are people like this?”

  “Sin,” Aiken says. “The effects of original sin thah’ffect all people.”

  “What if people are just bored?” I say. “What if modern life really is so boring, so lifeless, so devoid of meaning, and I mean especially on a daily basis, one boring meaningless thing after the other that it’s not so much that people fear a tragedy but they fear the lack of one? If something, somewhere, anywhere, doesn’t blow up soon, a new Mount Vesuvius, a Krakatoa, I’m going to have to face my boring daily grind and I might just lose my mind.”

  “I read a book onc
e,” Cord says. “Notes from Underground. And the author, the author, some Russian guy, Tolstoy I think-

  “Dostoevsky,” Aiken says.

  “Right! Thass’it. He gave this example ‘bout how Cleopatra would stick pins into thuh breasts of her servant girls just to watch’em suffer.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, just because she could. Just because, I dunno, I think the whole argument was really about free will, like a’repsonse ta’nother book, dang it I wish I had this all straight, but it was like an argument againt a utopian society cause no matter how perfect things coul’be—an’thuh chances of that happenin’ are’bout none anyways—no matter hoe perfect there’s the free will thah people have that can never be discounted. Someone’ull see all the nice things and feel trapped by it, or juss wanna throw a bomb or somethin’ just to live out that most important thing: choice, free will. Juss ta’prove they’re man nah’machine, y’know? So the Cleopatra thing was bout that. Here’s a queen got everythin’ perfect and she still can’t be good cause she’s human, can’t espcape her humanity.”

  “But how it relates to the liking bad things to happen to others?”

  “Like that. That we can’t escape that damaged part of us.”

  “Schadenfreude,” Aiken says.

  “What?”

  “Damage-joy,” I say. “Taking pleasure from someone’s misfortune.”

  “Righ’,” Cord says. “I think it’s both of these. People want to see the H-Bomb somewhere else because of the damage joy but also because our own damaged selves have’a tendency to be bored and be lazy and who cares, so long as I’m nah’urt, who cares if others are hurt, so long I can escape this and then, course, then I get the entertainment and the watchin’ it from thuh safety my own house, too.”

  “But ah’course we don’t know what we want,” Aiken says. “I mean, we doan know wha’we’re askin’for. One a’thuh best movies ever’s The Day After. Same things we’re talkin’bout. Middle America, daily life, boredom, college life, romance, football games. People on auto-pilot. Bunch a bombs fall’out the sky. Blow up Kansas. All that interest in bombs, all thuh thinkin iss cool, ya’know, in theory, the whole Spirit of 1914 thing goin off to war lookin fora’venture then the barbed wire and gas, here thinkin bombs are cool and what wood-a be like? You know, to see it? A lot less cool afterwards: Death, annihiliation, rubble, no one around to rebuild the rubble, poisoned air, countless people vaporized, the alive half-dead wishin’they were, vaporized, skin lesions and skin fallin’off, blindness, hysteria muted by utter confusion, a mulit-milennia redaction away from all progress and scientific ah’vancemnet, no, science only a a’tool, de-struction, everything leveled, boys, I mean, dead quiet because it’s all dead.”

  No one says anything. We sit there, each man with himself and his coffee. Finally Dale says, laughing to break the settling silence, “Sorry about that y’all. Too much serious and depressing stuff for one day, huh?”

  We all laugh.

  “Can y’all believe we actually beat LSU? I mean—

  “I got a question for y’all,” Cord says, “how come this town never wanna get with modern times?”

  Dale raises his eyebrows. Cord exhales.

  “I’m always at the town halls, meetings, stuff. Y’all know they were fixin’ on doing somethin’ with 12? Improvements.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Fix Highway 12?”

  “Yeah, I mean, they were gonna,” Cord says,”…okay, so the city hired some type’a firm come in and design some plans, that kind of thing. The plans were beautiful. Really good lookin’. A median down the whole’a 12, from Strangebrew all’tha way out ta Walmart. But that’s not all. Not just a median but trees planted down the middle, crosswalks painted different colors and stuff, sidewalks put in, whole thing. Okay? I’m mean, guys, it looked real good. Course we gotta vote on it. And course it got shot down but here’s the worst thing bout the whole thing: we lost passin’ the plans by two votes. Two votes! And there’s like nine guys who woulda voted for it, been complainin to me the past weeks about it, and these guys didn’t even show up the night for the vote. I mean, what in the hell? An’then people wonder why Starkville looks like it does, like shit.”

  Dale and me laugh.

  “Nah,” Cord says, “it’s ridiculous. Some ole’ woman asked the last city hall hows come we cain’t go back on dirt roads? Dirt roads? That’s our city. Not only don’t put in somethin’ nice, somethin’ thatall attract people and business into town, but dirt roads. Go backwards. And, and it’s like this everywhere, y’all know? Ain’t nobody ever think anymore about puttin’ character into anything and I mean building-wise. How much it cost? Okay. Build it. That’s the whole thought process. Some guy at one of the town halls was braggin’ about his storefront, some new building that just went up on Main Street, and he’s braggin’ and goin’ on about the ‘brick façade’ out front. Brick façade? No. Some fake-brick looking thing plastered onto a big box of corrugated metal. It looks like ass, brother. Like ass.”

  No one says anything, we’re laughing too hard.

  “Really though; can y’all believe we actually beat LSU?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The calendar has turned to November. It’s still beautiful outside, seventy degrees and no humidity, high clear blue skies and little wind.

  Watched a political ad on TV today. Big white man, big belly, big cowboy hat, next to a horse on his ranch. “Hey y’all, you know I’m really hopin’ I can count on y’alls vote come Tuesday. Lemme give’ya a little metaphor for how I’m plannin’ on fixin’ all the problems we got with government if I’m ‘lected governor.”

  Camera focuses in on a bunch of targets behind him. He pulls out this big rifle. “ ‘Magine them targets behind me are problems and ‘magine this right here,” taps on the rifle, “is the solution. This’how I’m planning fixin’ them problems.”

  Boom! Fires a shot at target one. Bullseye! Target two. Bullseye! Target three. Miss. Why wasn’t that edited out? Target four. Bullseye! Target five. Miss. What? The candidate doesn’t seem to miss a beat.

  “See, y’all. When I’m ‘lected governor y’all can count on me being a straight shooter when it comes to all kinds’ troubleshootin. Like they say here’on the farm, if ya hound dog’s not milkin’ the cows by noon, we gon’be okay.”

  If the gun and targets are to be taken as direct metaphors, what 40% of the problems in Mississippi is he planning on not addressing? What if he doesn’t know that he missed the targets? He didn’t seem to notice. Is this even worse?

  I find out later that this man, named Haynes, is a political “outsider” and a long shot for governor. The longest shot in the race. The incumbent Governor of Mississippi finally answered a question concerning Haynes a few weeks ago. “Haynes is running as a Republican? I thought he was running as a joke.” Minor scandal, if that. It was seen as a “poor choice of words” by the governor, that’s how the The Clarion-Ledger reported it in a small back page story on the incident. It is, far and away, the best publicity the Haynes campaign has received.

  Brent called and asked if I want to go play catch with him at McKee Park. Brent was a pitcher in college, some small D-3 school I forget the name, in Pennsylvania if I remember correctly, and every once in a while he and I go play catch.

  Good day for some catch. Dissertation is humming along. Met with Dr. Weathers last week and all is on schedule for the complete submission by the end of the year, revisions early next year, then the defense and graduation. I don’t even open my laptop today.

  Brent picks me up and brings a glove for me, like he always does, an old black catcher’s mitt. The usual routine if that we’ll start by playing catch and then Brent asks if I would mind standing behind home plate while he throws “a couple.” I’m soon squatting—shifting from the inside to the outside corner, framing two seam fastballs, begging Brent not to spike his curveball in the dirt because well, I’m not wearing gear, you know— in the impromptu bullpen session that a
lways materializes.

  We arrive at McKee Park. I still, after five years in Starkville, have not made up my mind about McKee Park.

  Is it this really cool public park with a bunch of baseball fields and tennis courts and basketball courts and a nice perimeter around which you can walk or jog or run and just have a good old time no matter what your pleasure? There are even picnic areas for family barbeques and a little playground, with slides and monkey bars and all that, for the kids.

  Or, is it a good intentioned park that falls just a little bit short everywhere—with none of the baseball fields larger than junior league size, the tennis courts well worn and overdo for a makeover, and those slides at the playground sprinkled with just too strong a tinge of dilapidation? I don’t know. I think I like McKee Park.

  Brent has a good arm. I think so, anyways. I’m not sure. Baseball was never really my thing so it’s hard for me to judge. But I think it’s safe to say he’s not bad considering the fact that he was good enough to pitch in college and that when I catch him, my palm hurts for a few days afterwards. Maybe the old catcher’s mitt really is awful, though. I’m not sure.

  Brent asks if I can catch him. Of course. I expected as much and have come to like catching him.

  He throws about twenty-five or thirty pitches. Pitch seventeen, I think, a cutter, I think, shoots past my glove and smacks me in the inner left thigh. It absolutely kills. Brent thinks it’s hilarious. He laughs harder when both of us see the massive welt and the imprint of the seams on my skin. I tell him I’m done but he bribes me with ice cream. Catch a few more and I’ll pay for ice cream, he says. Ice cream is perhaps the only thing that taps into my five-year old boy psychology. I’ll do anything for ice cream.

  Brent makes good on his promise and we eat frozen custard, just as good as ice cream, at Bop’s in town. Bop’s is on Highway 12, its only downside. Do you want to go hang out at Noxubee? Brent asks, meaning the Refuge. Sure, I say, I have nothing to do today, why not?