Bastard out of Carolina (32 page)

No, I thought. I won’t. Not a word, not a scream, nothing this time.

He pinned me between his hip and the sink, lifting me slightly and bending me over. I reached out and caught hold of the porcelain, trying not to grab at him, not to touch him. No. No. No. He was raging, spitting, the blows hitting the wall as often as they hit me. Beyond the door, Mama was screaming. Daddy Glen was grunting. I hated him. I hated him. The belt went up and came down. Fire along my thighs. Pain. Had Aunt Ruth felt pain like this? Had she screamed? I would not scream. I would not, would not, would not scream.

 

Afterwards it was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. Sound came back slowly. There were speckles of blood on the washcloth when Mama rinsed it. I watched, numb and empty. I was lying against her hip, on their bed. The house was cold. From the radio came the low sound of Conway Twitty singing “But it’s on—ly ma-ke be-lieve.”

“Why, honey? Why did you have to act like that? The funeral’s tomorrow, Raylene’s expecting us to help clean up at Ruth’s before everybody goes back over there, Alma’s baby’s sick, and now ...” She put the cool cloth on my neck.

“Bone. Is it because of Ruth? Is that why you started yelling at Glen? Honey, you know you can’t do that.”

Her skin was so pale, the shadows under her eyes so dark. She had wiped her lipstick off, but there was a little blotch still on her chin. Her lips trembled. She lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, keeping one hand on my shoulder. I could feel the bones in that hand. I heard her whisper as if she were talking to herself, “I just don’t know what to do.” I closed my eyes. There was only one thing that mattered. I had not screamed.

 

I spent the night before the funeral with Aunt Raylene over at Aunt Ruth’s place, helping her clean things up a bit and cook a ham and two different casseroles, one with noodles and cheese and one big vegetable mix with a cornmeal crust. Deedee had spent the evening locked in her bedroom playing the radio, and Travis was still down at the funeral home when Aunt Raylene made me go to bed. I woke up late and had to hurry to get a bath while Aunt Raylene cooked some biscuits and a pan of bacon. I’d been careful the night before not to let Raylene see the bruises on my legs when she had put me to bed in Butch’s old room. She had been so distracted she’d noticed nothing. This morning I had no appetite but ate a bacon biscuit dutifully and drank the rest of Aunt Raylene’s coffee while she finished getting dressed. Then I went out on the porch to wait for her.

The radio was playing “Get a Job” by the Silhouettes, the chorus staccato and driven, echoing loud in the early morning. Deedee was sitting in the porch rocker in her nightgown with her hair still done up in pin curls.

“I hate that damn hillbilly music, always have,” she told me conversationally while I stared at her.

“You got to get dressed. Aunt Raylene is just about ready to go.” I looked around for somebody else, but Uncle Travis’s truck was still gone and there was no one else there. Deedee looked like she hadn’t slept. She was smoking an unfiltered Chesterfield, her hand trembling slightly as she sucked intently on it, and her eyes bloodshot and squinted against the sunlight.

“But that’s all the music Mama would ever play,” she went on as if I hadn’t said a thing. “Howling, yodeling, whining music, trashy music. Get mad every time I played my stations, called it nigger music. Told me it would ruin me. Like she hadn’t told me time and time again I was ruined already.” Deedee had one leg drawn up so that her arm was propped on her knee, the cigarette poised just in front of her mouth. An almost empty pack was in her other hand, and there was a box of kitchen matches on the floor beside a saucer full of ashes.

The radio paused, pulsed, and the music changed. “Elvis Presley and the Jordanaires,” the DJ announced, “at the fairgrounds in Spartanburg this Sunday afternoon. I’m gonna be there, you can bet on it. Now here’s the man himself.” The music that had been playing softly in the background came up loud now. “I got a woman mean as she can be ...”

“I’ve seen Elvis now three times. What you think about that, Bonehead? You like Elvis?” Deedee looked at me almost hatefully.

I shrugged. “Well enough. I an’t never seen him.”

“You an’t never seen anything.”

“No.”

Deedee threw the cigarette butt over the side of the porch and glared at me. “She loved you, you know, hell of a sight more than she did me.”

I said nothing. Aunt Raylene stepped through the door, pulling on her gloves. “Deedee, you better take your hair down and get dressed. You should have been ready to go half an hour ago. Travis is already down at the funeral home.”

“He’s been down there all night.” Deedee tucked her feet up under her on the rocker and put one hand over her eyes. “I sent Grey over with his good suit when I figured out he wasn’t coming home. ”

“Well, I’m not surprised, I suppose.” Aunt Raylene touched Deedee’s cheek lightly, and for the first time I noticed the faint stain of tears. “It was good of you to make sure he had his suit. Now come on, girl. Get up and get dressed. We an’t got no time for you to be moping on this porch.”

Deedee’s hand dropped into her lap, and she shook her head fiercely. “I an’t going.” She licked her lips and cleared her throat. “You understand, Raylene, I an’t gonna do this. An’t gonna go down there and let everybody mope all over me. Mama wouldn’t care, and I can cry well enough here.”

“Deedee, get up.” Aunt Raylene gave the rocker a push, making Deedee overbalance so that she had to drop her feet to the floor to keep from falling. “I’m not kidding around with you. You got five minutes to put on your dress and shoes. You can take your hairpins out in the car.”

“I told you, I an’t going. And I an’t!”

The slap startled me as much as it did Deedee. She put one hand to her face while Raylene raised her arm again. “I said get up.” Aunt Raylene’s voice was soft but perfectly clear. “I just an’t gonna have this. Tonight or tomorrow, I’ll talk to you about your mama. Then you can whine and bitch to your heart’s content, curse and scream and do any damn thing you want. But right now, you’re going to her funeral the way she would want. If you don’t, ten years from now you’re gonna hate yourself for missing it, and I damn sure am not gonna let that go by. So get your butt up out of that chair and wash your face before I slap you silly.”

Deedee hesitated, her mouth hanging open, and Raylene drew her hand back. Immediately, Deedee was up and into the house. We heard the water running briefly and then her feet on the stairs. Aunt Raylene sighed and pushed a few stray hairs back behind her ears. She looked over at me carefully. “Go get in the car,” she said. “We an’t got time for no more nonsense.”

They had let Earle out of the county farm early so he could go to Aunt Ruth’s funeral. He showed up at the funeral home drunk, wearing a brand-new dark suit with his old work boots, and hanging on to the arm of a ridiculously young and skinny girl no one had seen before. I was out front standing with Raylene and Alma when we saw him coming up the steps. He gave me one quick nod but kept his attention on his sisters. When Raylene snorted at him, he told the girl to go wait in his truck.

“Don’t get snotty, Raylene,” he said as the girl walked away. “That child is the only thing keeping me alive.”

“And what are you doing for her?”

“Everything I can, sister, everything she wants.”

“You marry her, then?” Aunt Alma looked tired and impatient.

“I’m going to. Hell yes. I am, I surely am.”

“Goddam, Earle, you fool. One of your women gonna have you put in jail one of these days.”

“An’t no woman ever gonna put me in jail.” Earle swayed a little on his old boots. “An’t no woman would dare,”

“Aww, Earle.” Raylene shook her head at him and shrugged. She folded her big arms around his shoulders and pulled him to her breast. “I’m just glad you’re here.” When she let him go, she smiled for the first time since Ruth had died. “That child buy you that suit?”

“Why? Don’t you like it?” Earle ran his hands down the sides of his suit coat. He was so thin that when he bent his arms the dark material flapped like a crow’s wing. His hair was still bristly short and close to his head, but dark again, as if he’d dyed it. He only looked like himself when he grinned in embarrassment. “Don’t you think she got me a good one?”

“It’s good enough, especially since you didn’t have to pay for it.”

Beau was wearing his best dark suit, but it didn’t fit him too well. He kept lifting one shoulder and then the other, trying to settle himself more comfortably. The smell of whiskey clung to him, but he looked more sober than he had in years—sober, irritable, and so nervous he was chewing on his lower lip. “Why the hell we just standing around here?” He turned to Raylene as if she were in charge. “This funeral should have been over two days ago, and now we’re standing on these steps like we an’t never gonna put Ruth in the ground.”

“Beau!” Alma looked disgusted. “Don’t talk like that. The kids will hear you.”

Raylene’s voice was soft and neutral. “We’re waiting ’cause Travis asked us to wait. He’s hoping Tommy Lee, Dwight, and D.W. will get here and go out to the grave with us.”

“Hell! Those boys an’t coming. Nobody’s even seen Tommy Lee in two years, and last I heard D.W. was on his way to California.” Beau cleared his throat and spit. “Travis isn’t using his head.”

“No, he an’t,” Raylene continued in that flat soft tone. “And you wouldn’t either in his place. Ruth wanted all her children to come home, and Travis has just been trying to do everything the way she wanted. Give him a few more minutes and the funeral director will get him moving. I don’t want you saying nothing to Travis.”

“I wasn’t gonna say nothing to Travis.” Beau looked indignant. “I an’t a fool.”

“Come on, Beau.” Earle put his hand on Beau’s shoulder. “Come out to the truck with me a minute.

“Oh God!” Alma sounded like she was going to start yelling. “Now they’re gonna both be drunk.”

“I don’t care.” Raylene took her handkerchief out of her purse and wiped her mouth. “Beau has a drink, I know how he’ll behave. I don’t know that man at all when he’s sober. Don’t know what he’ll do. But if Earle gives him a drink, he might even be able to cry. Let them take care of each other.”

 

I saw Butch out at the gravesite, awkward in a dark suit that looked too big for him. He told me later that he had come there hours before and watched as the gravediggers finished rigging the canopy over the big hot-house sprays and ribbon-draped wreaths and pegged it down against the wind. It was cold and gray, with no sign of rain, just a steady harsh wind pushing at all the flowers. There was a big heart-shaped arrangement on a stand that read
Mother
in cursive script. He stood near it with his hands gripped tightly in front of him.

“Bone,” he whispered when I came to stand beside him. “You better get a seat.”

“I don’t want to sit.” The wind rocked the heart wreath, and we both put our hands out to steady it.

“I heard you spent the summer with her.”

“Yeah. ”

“I got back once to see her just before Thanksgiving. Only got to stay a few days. Sorry I never got a chance to see you.” His voice was low. We watched everyone come over and take their seats. Mama, Raylene, Alma, and Carr gathered around Granny. I hadn’t seen Granny in a long time. She was gray-faced, empty-eyed, and slack-jawed.

“She looks like the doctor gave her something,” I whispered to Butch.

“Looks bad,” Butch agreed. His back stiffened, and he turned away for a moment to look out over the open field of low gravestones. When he turned back I saw his mouth was clamped shut and his eyes red-rimmed.

Nevil, Earle, and Beau remained at a distance, watching until the hearse pulled up and the men gathered to carry the casket to the grave. I saw that Dwight and D.W. were with the others, but there was no sign of Tommy Lee.

The wind was bitter. As they carried the coffin, the men struggled to keep the flowers on top of it. The preacher dropped his papers, and Little Earle ran to grab them. Patsy Ruth and Mollie were sitting with Reese, Grey and Garvey behind them. Temple was sitting with her husband, right behind Mama. Most of the other seats were filled with women from Bushy Creek Baptist. When the preacher began with “Brothers and sisters,” they all nodded together.

“Goddam,” I heard Butch mutter. “Goddam.”

“Goddam,” I agreed.

 

“There should have been music,” I told Butch when we were back at Aunt Ruth’s. He was sitting with me in the cane-back chairs Uncle Travis had put out in the backyard, reaching into his pocket and sipping surreptitiously from an almost empty little bottle of Ancient Age whiskey. He also had a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon under his chair, Nevil’s beer of choice, which he kept pouring into a metal coffee cup and drinking openly. I don’t know how much he’d had, but he looked relaxed and comfortable despite the cold, wearing one of Uncle Travis’s old army greatcoats and a plaid wool scarf wrapped around his neck. I had borrowed Uncle Nevil’s fleece-lined jacket and leather gloves, and wasn’t too chilled myself, but it wasn’t surprising that no one else had joined us.