BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (100 page)

"You remind me of Lucille's daddy," said Queenie, and she didn't say this with pleasure. "Except he was the meanest man ever to walk on the face of the earth, and I don't believe you are."

"No, ma'am," said Tommy Lee, who was fifteen and quiet and shy, even around his grandmother. "I don't believe I am."

Tommy Lee Burgess was on the periphery of the Caskey dominion. He hadn't the Caskey drive, he hadn't their intelligence or sharpness. Though he was strong, he didn't play sports in school. Sports would have interfered with his pleasures at home. He coveted those hours after school, when he had time enough to fish for an hour or so in the pond, or swim in the pool, shoot a pheasant in the woods, or ride a horse around and around the pecan orchard with Grace. He was tolerably well liked at school in Babylon, but had few friends. All his allegiance was to his mother and to Grace. With them—and with them alone—was Tommy Lee ever really at ease. His sole companion his own age was Sammy Sapp, Luvadia's boy, but Sammy spent so much time caddying for Oscar these days that Tommy Lee saw little of him anymore. Tommy Lee was quiet, and a little bumbling, and Lucille and Grace loved him to death.

Queenie had actually never paid much attention to her grandson before. He was too quiet for her taste. Perhaps if he had been ill-behaved, he would have caught more of her attention. But he had never intruded himself upon Queenie's consciousness, and so had been passed over.

She saw more of him during the time that she spent at the farm than she ever had before. School let out for the summer at the beginning of the second week of Queenie's stay, so after that Tommy Lee was around all the time. The boy had just received his driving learner's permit, and since Grace and Lucille were busy as usual, Queenie volunteered to give him lessons. For several hours each day they bumped around the farm in the older pickup truck, and Queenie never once suspected, through all her careful instructions, that Tommy Lee had been driving since he was ten.

The damage to Queenie's house was so extensive that two full weeks were required to fix it. It might possibly have taken less time if Malcolm had been content with a patch job, but he insisted on doing it right. Both Elinor and Miriam had surveyed the damage to Queenie's house. "It wasn't an electrical storm that did this," said Miriam firmly. "And Malcolm, it wasn't bad wiring either." Elinor said nothing, but she helped Malcolm to pick out new lamps in Pensacola.

At last, on the first of June, Malcolm called his mother and told her she might return home. The entire house had been rewired, and if even one single bulb burned out in the next three months, he promised he would sit down at the dinner table and eat it in front of polled witnesses.

But Queenie didn't return to Perdido that night, nor the next. Grace and Lucille were pleased, but they were puzzled. Not even the pleasure she got in giving Tommy Lee his driving lessons was equal to the accustomed pleasures of living in Perdido. When it came down to it, country living was very trying for Queenie.

"Mama, you are pining away out here," said Lucille at dinner one day. "Much as we want you to stay with us, now that the house is all fixed up, maybe you ought to think about going back to town."

"I have thought about it," said Queenie uneasily.

"And?" said Grace.

Queenie dabbed her mouth with her napkin and reached for more peas. She said bravely, "I won't go back... because I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?" asked Tommy Lee, surprised.

"I'm an old woman," said Queenie, continuing to spoon peas onto her plate, "and I've never lived by myself before. That old house...it's filled withjtoo many memories. Too many people have lived there. Too many people have died there. And I don't think I can stay in it by myself."

"Well, Queenie," said Grace quickly, "you know you're welcome out here, but I don't think you'd be happy."

Queenie shook her head. "I miss the excitement of town," she admitted. "But Miriam won't have me, Elinor doesn't have the room, and I'm too old to think of moving anywhere else. Besides, James left me that house. He left me everything in it—his things, his pretty things that he loved so much. And I owe it to him—I owe everything to your daddy, Grace—to stay there and watch over them. I'd never forgive myself if I didn't go back... but I'm so scared."

"I don't understand," said Tommy Lee. "I don't understand what you're scared of."

"I hear things," said Queenie. She smiled, but the smile was pained. "I see lights, Tommy Lee. I know, you think I'm just an old scairdy-cat woman—hearing things that aren't there, seeing things that don't exist. I know they're not there. I know they don't exist. But I still hear them, and I still see them. The night before I came out here, do you know what I saw when I looked out the window in the middle of the night?"

"What?" said Tommy Lee.

"Lucille," said Queenie, turning away from the boy and toward his mother. "I saw your daddy walking right across the yard. Your daddy came up on the front porch of that house and tried to get in. I heard his boots on the porch. He tried to raise the window, but I had it latched. He tried to open the door, but I had it locked. When he couldn't get in, he got mad, and he made all the lights come on and he broke every bulb and every light in the house. There wasn't any electrical storm. The wiring in that house was fine. Carl Strickland did it. He's mad 'cause when he drowned in the Perdido I took Ivey's quarters and I threw them in the water and those quarters kept him down."

"Mama," said Lucille softly. "Daddy's dead. Daddy's been dead for thirty years."

"I know," said Queenie. "But don't you think I'd still know him if I heard him walking up and down on the front porch? Don't you think I'd know him if I saw him? He was walking back toward the levee. He was going back into the Perdido. Those quarters kept him down, I know they did. Oh, Lord, I wish I had 'em back! I wish I had kept 'em in my pocket! If I go back, I know he'll be on the front porch again at night. When I heard the dishes rattle at night, I knew that was Carl, out on the front porch, rocking in a chair—Lucille, you remember how your daddy always used to sit out on the porch at night and rock. But then he gets up, and walks up and down the porch, looking for a way to get in the house. How can I go back?"

Lucille and Grace said nothing.

"Grandmama?" said Tommy Lee.

"What?"

"What if I went with you?"

Queenie considered this.

"I'd feel protected," she said at last. "Carl didn't come when Malcolm was in the house. It was only when Malcolm got married and moved next door."

"Then I'll go back with you. We can leave tonight. I'll drive you back."

Queenie shook her head. "And then tomorrow you'll come back here. Carl will just be waiting for you to go. It won't do any good."

"But what if I stayed?"

"Stayed?" echoed Grace.

Tommy Lee nodded.

Queenie smiled, then reached over and squeezed Tommy Lee's hand. "You're sweet, but you love this boring old farm. I know how you love it."

Tommy Lee shrugged. "I tell you what," he said. "If Mama and Grace will let me, I'll come stay with you till you feel safe again."

"What about your hunting?" said Grace.

"There's woods right up against Elinor's house. I hunted there with Malcolm one time."

"What about fishing?" said his mother.

"There's the Perdido. It's about as close as you can get."

"You'd leave us?" said Lucille, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Grandmama needs me," said Tommy Lee.

"That I do," said Queenie. "Would y'all give Tommy Lee up for a while?"

Grace sighed. "Tommy Lee can do what he wants."

Lucille nodded acquiescence. "Are you gone send him back if he causes you any trouble?"

"This boy?" cried Queenie. "Who's he gone give trouble to?"

"He's not yours," Grace said pointedly. "We're not giving him up the way you gave up Danjo."

"I know that," said Queenie. "I just want the loan of him for a while. When I've used him all up, I'll send him back."

"Make sure you do," said Grace sternly. "And what about school in the fall?"

"Lord, Grace," said Queenie, "the boy just got out of school. Don't already be talking about going back!"

Thus Queenie Strickland returned to Perdido with Tommy Lee Burgess. The Caskeys—and the rest of Perdido as well—wondered just what she had done, or said, or given, to pry the boy away from the farm. And they wondered why she wanted him, particularly when she had taken so little note of him before.

Yet, as if to make up for her previous neglect, Queenie couldn't make enough of Tommy Lee that summer. She bought him three new guns to hunt with; she drove him down to Destin and let him pick out the best set of fishing gear and tackle in the store. She bought him boots for the woods, and a boat for the Perdido. She cleared the boxes out of the bedroom next to hers and moved in the biggest, softest bed she could find. She hired a cook just to fix him breakfast in the morning. Most fifteen-year-olds would have been spoiled and overwhelmed by such attention, but Tommy Lee accepted it with astonishing equanimity. He spent his days hunting and fishing, and his evenings with Queenie, watching television or going out to the Starlite Drive-in for double features. Queenie sat in the car, swatting mosquitoes and forever adjusting the volume control on the speaker; Tommy Lee lay on the hood, his head on a pillow against the windshield, watching the summer lightning quite as much as he watched the picture on the screen.

Queenie often asked Tommy Lee if he weren't growing tired of her, if he wouldn't rather be off with some of his friends instead of being chained to a wearisome old woman. Tommy Lee always shrugged and said that he didn't have any friends, and that he never really got tired of Queenie, except when she asked too many questions.

It was at night, after the ten o'clock news or after an evening at the Starlite, that Tommy Lee proved his real worth to his grandmother. For he left the door to his room open, and at any time of the night Queenie could rise, walk into the hallway, and see him there sleeping. Queenie did that often. And Tommy Lee's presence in the house, as his grandmother had predicted, kept Carl away.

The summer passed quickly for both Queenie and Tommy Lee, and soon the time neared for Tommy Lee to go back to school. Grace and Lucille began talking about his returning to Gavin Pond Farm, and Queenie began to speak of the superiority of the Perdido school system over that of the one in Babylon.

"It's up to Tommy Lee," said Grace at last, when it became apparent that a sort of stalemate had been reached.

Tommy Lee decided to remain with his grandmother. He transferred to the high school in Perdido, and all during the fall of 1959 and the winter and spring of 1960, he spent five days a week in Perdido and Saturdays and Sundays at Gavin Pond Farm.

Every night, however, he slept in the bedroom next to Queenie's. Carl Strickland remained at bay.

This development was remarked upon widely in Perdido. Yet another Caskey offspring had been given away. In the whole history of the family, the only child to have remained with its parents was Frances, and Frances was now dead. Lilah, though she lived in the same house as her father, belonged not to him so much as to Elinor. When Frances drowned in the Perdido, Lilah had become her grandmother's child; Billy Bronze became a sort of uncle to his daughter. He took no more part than that in her upbringing. Elinor gave permission, Elinor refused requests, Elinor decided what might or might not be done; Elinor bought Lilah's clothes, and paid for Lilah's pleasures. Billy watched hia daughter grow up with affection and interest, but not with the love or involvement of a parent.

Perdido rather hoped that Miriam Caskey Strickland would conceive a child—she was nearing forty, and there wasn't much more time for her—because Perdido wanted to make bets on who would end up with it. Miriam, of all Caskeys within memory, was least likely to want to hold on to a son or a daughter if anyone were to step forward with an offer. The often-heard remark was that if it was a girl, she'd trade it for diamonds; if it was a boy, for oil-company stock.

Perhaps that was what Miriam would have done, had she had a child. But Miriam didn't conceive, though she and Malcolm went at it with the application that Miriam brought to everything. Malcolm had been surprised by his wife's change of heart, and even went so far as to question her about it. "You didn't always want a baby, you know," he pointed out. "You said you'd use its head for a pin-cushion."

"Married people have babies," Miriam replied, a little uncomfortably. "So I changed my mind, that's all. I decided that if I was gone go to the trouble of marrying you—and Malcolm, there never was a man who was more trouble than you—then I might as well go on and do the other thing, too." Yet no child came, and it began to look as if no child would.

This irked Miriam. She didn't like being thwarted, and that it was her own body that was proving recalcitrant was a double insult. Malcolm tried to point out to his disappointed wife that a child was only likely to prove a burden to her. Pregnancy itself was likely to interfere with her work; the child would demand time and attention that Miriam would probably resent not giving to the mill and the oil business.

Miriam wasn't consoled. "I could still go to the office if I got pregnant," she said. "And if once in a while I couldn't, I could tell you and Billy what to do and I suppose you would get it done. Once the child came, I'd hire a girl to take care of it." All Zaddie and Ivey's brothers had been long married, and already there was a third generation of female Sapps, just pining to be hired on by the Caskeys. "And if that didn't work out, I could always send it out to Gavin Pond Farm or over to Elinor's. They'd all leap at the chance for another baby. After all, there hasn't been a baby around here since Lilah was born."

But Miriam still didn't conceive, and finally she was convinced by Malcolm and her own body that it would never happen. This didn't, however, lessen her desire to have a child. She looked next door, and saw how Queenie had stolen Tommy Lee away from Lucille and Grace. And when Miriam looked the other way, what she saw was Lilah Bronze, just ripe for the plucking.