BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (102 page)

Out at Gavin Pond Farm, Grace and Lucille still claimed that they got along with just Luvadia and Escue, but the fact was that Luvadia had three teenage children besides Sammy, and those three were in permanent requisition. Moreover, there were field workers who came to the farm every day, and men who maintained the heavy machinery, repaired the fences, filled the oil tanks, and doctored the livestock. Workers on the oil rigs south of the farm sometimes wandered up on some excuse or other, and rarely fewer than a dozen persons sat down to the midday meal at Gavin Pond Farm.

After so many years of appearing only a little above the other inhabitants of Perdido, the Caskeys had gradually put away their conservative coarse linen, and now appeared recklessly resplendent. They bought new cars every year; they flew on airplanes in the first-class compartments. When traveling they put up at the best hotels, and shopped in the most expensive stores. Elinor sent Malcolm down to New Orleans once a month and had him bring up a trunk-load of the finest wines and liquors. Elinor entertained businessmen and politicians by the score in the course of a year, and grew so adept at hospitality that she was thought a perfect hostess, because everything was accomplished so effortlessly and with such unconscious grace. Perdido was a small pond indeed, but the Caskeys would have made a very decent showing in a body of water of substantially greater dimensions.

The town might have grown resentful if these changes had not been so unconscious on the part of the Caskeys, if the family's sphere had not enlarged itself so naturally and without their seeming aggressively to seek this upward climb. No change was perceived in their demeanor around the town, and they treated no individual differently from before. If the Caskeys gave a party—and they now did entertain more frequently than before—then the same people were invited this year that had been invited five years before. Only now Perdido was very likely to meet one, or even both, Alabama senators, not to mention a man from Texas who owned seventeen thousand head of cattle, and a woman who called the First Lady of the United States by her Christian name.

Tommy Lee, of all the family, was least affected by all these changes. He remained shy and retiring. When looked for, Tommy Lee was always found in a corner, as far out of the way as possible. His favorite corners were the river, on which he loved to fish; the woods, in which he loved to hunt; and Queenie's bedroom, where he sat and talked to his grandmother for many hours on end. He wasn't looked down upon, by any means, by most of the family, for his function in keeping Queenie occupied and happy was a noble one. Queenie had kept Sister company for many, many years; now Queenie was being repaid for that loyalty through the agency of her grandson. And God knew that Tommy Lee was not good for much else.

But Lilah was embarrassed by Tommy Lee. She wished that she had almost anybody else in the entire county for a cousin. He rendered her self-image imperfect. How sophisticated could she be when such a bumbling troglodyte as Tommy Lee was her only teen-aged relative? He wasn't really her cousin, of course, but only her great-uncle's great-nephew by marriage. Whenever anyone at school referred to Tommy Lee as Lilah's cousin, she attempted to explain this rather complicated relationship, but it never did any good. Next day, Tommy Lee Burgess was again Lilah Bronze's cousin. It wouldn't have been so bad if he weren't already getting fat, just like the Stricklands. Queenie was fat, and Lucille was fat. Malcolm was pretty big, but Miriam kept her husband on the go so much that he didn't have time to eat as much as he wanted. Danjo had sent a photograph of himself and his wife Fred in Germany at Christmas, and he was fat, too. Danjo and Fred had two fat little boys, one of whom was already a graf.

Lilah alternated between spates of badgering Tommy Lee unmercifully and ignoring him completely. When she ignored him completely, he might as well not have existed. She wouldn't speak to him, even when they sat next to each other at the dinner table; her eyes wouldn't focus on him when she turned her head in his direction. When she did take notice of him, it was only to pound him relentlessly with questions she knew he couldn't answer: "Why don't you go on a diet?" "If you won't go on a diet, why don't you try out for football?" "Why don't you ever go out on a date?" "Why don't you ask Queenie if you can drive me down to New Orleans so I can go shopping?"

When Lilah was in the ninth grade—a mere freshman in the high school—Tommy Lee was a graduating senior. He asked her to go with him to the senior prom, but she refused. She would certainly not attend her first school dance on the arm of her cousin! Tommy Lee ended up going alone. Malcolm was a chaperon, and so Tommy Lee sat with his uncle at the side of the room all evening long. Malcolm saw how unhappy Tommy Lee was, and he surreptitiously poured bourbon into the boy's punch.

It was Lilah who convinced Tommy Lee to go to college. "You have got to go, Tommy Lee, and that's all there is to it."

Tommy Lee was surprised by Lilah's sudden interest in his future, and secretly suspected that her real motive was to get him out of town. He saw well enough how little Miriam liked having him around, but characteristically, he only admired her for the vehemence of her passion against him. But Tommy Lee still couldn't see the need of college for himself.

"Look, Lilah, I'm not any good at all that business."

"All what business?"

"You know, grades and junk. Besides, Grand-mama sort of needs me around here."

"Queenie would like to keep you tied to the foot of her bed, that's what Queenie would like to do with you," snapped Lilah. "And if you let her keep you around here, I will never speak to you again."

"Grandmama's been real good to me," Tommy Lee pointed out.

"If you went to college," said Lilah, "you could join a fraternity."

Tommy Lee glanced doubtfully at his cousin. "You sure somebody'd ask me?"

"Sure," said Lilah decisively. "You know why? 'Cause you're rich. They find out about things like that. Rich people always get asked to join fraternities, 'cause they know rich people can pay their dues and buy beer for the parties. And rich people bring their cars to school and own beach houses to give parties in and all that."

"How would people know I'm rich?" asked Tommy Lee, who never carried more than two dollars in his pocket, even when he went to Pensacola.

"They find out. They look up people's names. There's a big book and it tells if people are rich or not. A friend of mine saw one in a fraternity house one time," Lilah went on confidently. "So if you went to college, you could join a fraternity, and then you could invite me to come up to all the parties they have. There's a party every Friday night during football season, and then the rest of the year there's one every other Saturday."

"Would you come?"

"Of course I would come!"

"Where should I go?"

"You mean where should you apply?" asked Lilah, considering the question. "Alabama's got more fraternities, but Auburn is closer."

"I don't care," said Tommy Lee. "Whichever one you say, Lilah." He understood now that his going away to college would serve a double purpose for Lilah. It would get him out of town, where he was merely an embarrassment to her, and it would secure her invitations to fraternity parties. To be able, as a mere high school sophomore, to put in an appearance at one of those much whispered-about orgies of drink and delectably loose behavior, would secure Lilah instant, exalted, and unapproachable stature among her peers.

"Well, until I learn how to drive, you're gone have to come down here and pick me up on Friday afternoon and then bring me back on Saturday. Since Auburn's closer, you better go to Auburn. After I get my driver's license, then maybe you should transfer to Alabama."

Thus it was that Tommy Lee Burgess decided to apply to Auburn; his application, though late, was accepted.

Grace and Lucille were enormously proud, of course. Tommy Lee was lost to them, that they acknowledged, so the two women took pleasure in the thought of his going away to school and making more of himself than anyone had anticipated.

It was Queenie who was despondent, though she couldn't, in all conscience, deny her grandson permission to attend college. In fact, using all her willpower she refused even subtly to attempt to dissuade him from his plans. She could only moon over him, and buy him more clothes than he could possibly pack in the back of the car. In fact, she bought him a new car, one with a larger trunk for that very purpose. She insisted on going up to Auburn and seeing him installed in a dormitory, though Lilah begged her not to. "Look, Queenie," Lilah said, in as peremptory a tone as Miriam herself might have used, "he's only gone be there for two weeks at the most."

Queenie's heart leaped at this thought. "Do you think so?" she cried. "You mean he'll be so homesick that he'll come right back to Perdido! I never did think Tommy Lee was cut out for college."

"No," said Lilah impatiently. "I mean he'll be moving into a fraternity house. I bet he's Pi Eta. Pi Eta gets all the richest boys. They give a toga party every September. So Tommy Lee will be coming back down to pick me up. He's already promised to invite me. Of course if he pledges Pi Epsilon, they have a Polynesian night. I'd rather go to a Polynesia party than a toga party, but I still bet Tommy Lee goes Pi Eta."

In the last week of August 1961, Tommy Lee and Queenie drove up to Auburn in Tommy Lee's new car. Queenie saw him installed in his dormitory room, and watched with pleasure as Tommy Lee tried, with but little success, to fit his mountain of new clothes into the slim closet and the single low chest of drawers that was allotted him. Tommy Lee's roommate showed up too, and Queenie took them both out to a catfish supper.

Queenie spent the night in the Auburn Hotel, and made Tommy Lee stay with her rather than in his room. The next day, Lucille drove up, and was offhandedly introduced to Tommy Lee's astonished roommate as "my farm mama." Late that afternoon, following a tearful farewell, Lucille drove Queenie back to Perdido, and sat with her on the front porch of James's house until midnight;

"I am so lonesome," Queenie said over and over again, "that I just cain't face going inside, knowing that Tommy Lee isn't gone be there."

"You got to go inside, Mama, 'cause I am about dead, and Grace is out there at the farm waiting up for me."

Queenie sighed, rose from her chair, and allowed Lucille to lead her inside the house.

"I could kill Lilah Bronze for sending Tommy Lee away like that. And all Lilah wants is an escort to a party where nobody wears anything but a sheet with a grass skirt on underneath it. She could have worn that around the house here, and nobody in Perdido would have said a word about it. But no," Queenie sighed, "she had to send Tommy Lee away."

"Well, Mama," said Lucille, without much sympathy, "now you know about how Grace and I felt when vou took Tommy Lee away from us."

"Did you?" said Queenie vaguely.

"We sure did," said Lucille as she turned to leave.

Queenie listened to her daughter's footsteps as Lucille left the house. She heard the front door shut, heard Lucille's tread across the front porch and down the steps. She heard Lucille move across the yard toward her car parked on the road. Lucille's car started up, and soon the noise of the engine was lost behind the screen of ligustrum to the east.

Queenie didn't even pretend to herself that she wanted to sleep. She wanted only to think of Tommy Lee—to think about the fact that he was up in Auburn, in a cramped little cinder-block room in the freshman dormitory, and not where he ought to be, lying comfortably in the big soft bed in the room adjoining hers; in that dim, safe corner of that old house, in the shadow of the Perdido levee. She lay awake for a long time, thinking of her grandson, remembering with pleasure how many times she had sat at the dining room table and watched him eat his breakfast, how many times they had walked together to Elinor's for supper, how they had played double solitaire in the evening, how they had watched television or the movies at the Starlite Drive-in together, how at least five times every evening they said good-night and kissed each other before laying themselves in their beds. She thought about how every night for three years Tommy Lee had kept Carl Strickland from coming back to that house.

Tommy Lee had protected her, and now Queenie was by herself.

Queenie lay absolutely still, thinking no more of Tommy Lee but only of the fact that she was alone.

She heard, in that stillness, the dishes rattle in the kitchen cupboard. It actually wasn't as much of a rattle as just a little vibration, but Queenie had lived too long in that house not to know when the dishes in the cupboards were disturbed. Down at the other end of the darkened hallway, beyond the dark-stained swinging door, in the closed cupboards, James's best china was shaking with the surreptitious footsteps of someone walking as slowly and softly as he could, up and down on the front porch.

Queenie was suddenly smitten with doubt as to whether or not Lucille had locked the front door on her way out. Queenie got out of bed and crept slowly and softly to the door of her room. She peered out into the hallway toward the front of the house. All was dark, still, and silent.

She stepped out into the hallway, and the crystals on the candelabra on the dining room table chimed softly together. Queenie wasn't afraid of that, though, for her own footsteps had caused it.

She now stepped quickly toward the front door. She could see it plainly, its white frame glowing in the dimness of that dark house, the white sheers over its glass inserts shaking almost imperceptibly from her footsteps. She could even see the key in the lock. She could even see the key in the lock turning.

Suddenly the whole house was shaking. Just on the other side of the door someone stood turning the key in the lock and stamping up and down on the porch as hard as he could, first one booted foot and then the other, again and again. The key spun around and around in the lock in a way that keys never turn; it spun quickly and then more quickly, while all the glass and china in the house rattled and chimed in the darkness. One booted foot and then the other continued to stamp up and down on the porch, so that the whole house shook and only Queenie, standing in the open double doors of the dining room, remained still and rooted. That darkened house was filled with music, music of rattling, cracking glass, a shrill tumultuous accompaniment to the tympany of those booted feet on the loosening boards of the front porch. The key still spun around and around, catching light that didn't seem to be anywhere else in the room, and dashing it into Queenie's staring eyes. She dizzily grabbed hold of the doorframe for support. Then Queenie saw the key pop out of the lock, and though it fell on the bare wood floor, Queenie couldn't hear it land for the music was so loud in the house, beating in her ears. All was underlaid with the sound of the Perdido rushing along as the Perdido had never rushed before, or maybe that was only the blood in her head, rushing in pulses to the same beat the boots were making on the porch, and the quaking noise of a thousand pieces of china, and crystal, and porcelain in that darkened house.