Victory Over Japan (26 page)

“You're taking him to a city to live a life he can't imagine when he's only twelve
years old? Slow down, Crystal. Use your head. Think it over.”

“Anything is better than Rankin County, Mississippi.
You've forgotten. You've been gone too long. Well, are you coming down and help me out?”

“What's the
date. When's the wedding going to be?”

“June the first. The first day of June.”

So
down I went. One morning I'm sitting at my desk at
Time
magazine researching an article on the Pentagon and that night I'm at a
rehearsal party at the Royal Orleans and Phelan's reciting “The Call of the Yukon” to the rabbi and the matches on the table say
Manny and Crystal
in gold letters.
Many Congratulations!
The groom's mother stood in for the bride at the rehearsal and no one
even cracked a smile. I was home.

“What's this marriage all about?” I said to Phelan the night before. He's
Crystal's brother, a big-game hunter and real estate developer. He was the brains behind the Ross Barnett Reservoir. “I don't know
what this marriage means.”

“It means money,” he said. “He's rich, DeDe. He's rich, rich, rich,
rich, rich.”

***

“Why are you doing this, Crystal?” I said. “There's still time.
You can still back out.”

“He's rich,” she said. “He's rich, rich, rich, rich, rich.”

Things the groom's family gave King that weekend. Swiss army knife with ten blades, new bicycle, a Peugeot, ten-dollar bill,
six shares of Walt Disney stock, twenty-dollar bill. “What am I supposed to do with this money?” he said to the groom's father.

“Spend it,” the old man said. “Buy something for yourself.”

He found an arcade a block from
the hotel. Every time I looked for him he was there, sticking quarters into war game machines. “I don't care what she does,” he said.
“I'm going to Meridian to live with Daddy. I told her already. She knows.”

“You'll change your mind
when school starts. You got into Newman, didn't you? It's the best school in town.”

“I saw it,” he
said. “The girls are ugly. The principal looks like a fairy. The yard's all dirty. There isn't any grass.”

“Your mother loves you, King. She's doing this for you.” He looked at me out of those steel eyes and stuck another
quarter into his machine. “Don't be like this,” I said. “Don't act this way.”

“He's
ugly,” King said. “He looks bad. He's too short.” Later he took the Swiss army knife and dropped it down the mail chute at the
hotel. We heard it clanging as it fell. “It was an accident,” he said. “I didn't think it would fit.”

***

A wedding at the groom's family's house. Six hundred dollars' worth of hothouse flowers all around
the fireplace. Outside, those incredible gardens. A lily pond and two birdbaths and the statue of Saint Francis. Like a garden in a museum. The roses
had these little laminated signs. I saw Crystal's mother eyeing them. “A Dorothy Perkins!” she exclaimed. “I haven't seen
one in ages. Oh, I do love them so. Such a divine shade of pink.”

Champagne in the garden before the wedding. “Come
see the Max Graf,” the groom's mother said. “It will only be blooming a few more days.” I stood there in the morning sunlight.
For a moment it all seemed so wonderful. She lucked up, I thought. She guessed right. I drank another glass of champagne. For a moment I believed in
everything. The goldfish in the lily pond, Crystal's peau de soie wedding dress the exact color of her hair, the morning sun, the servants
bringing champagne, the mothers bending together over the roses, their heads almost touching. King was standing beside them holding the garden shears.
The groom's mother was pointing out dead branches for him to prune. “Oh, yes,” she was saying. “There is one each of everything.
I've been collecting for years. It's such a joy. My pride and joy.”

King cut a tiny little cut in the pants of
his new suit. We all ignored it. “He's my best little helper at home,” Crystal's mother said. “He helps with everything. I
don't know what I'm going to do with him way off down here in New Orleans.”

“That Malmaison came from my
mother's place on Newcomb Boulevard,” the groom's mother said. “I'll give Crystal a cutting as soon as they get
settled.”

“Oh, I wish you could interest her in gardening,” Crystal's mother said. “It's such a
comfort. It would be so good for her.” The women stood up. Their hands touched. Hope beating its wings like a sparrow.

Then
people were coming. Close kin on both sides, all the aunts and uncles, a few friends. There must have been thirty all together. The living room was big
enough to hold twice that many. It was as cold as a chapel, the air conditioner circulating the smell of flowers and perfume. Champagne everywhere. Mrs.
Manning in teal blue, Mrs. Weiss in pale pink, me in my four-hundred-dollar number from Bonwit Teller, Crystal in cream, half-drunk and nervous. The
rabbi, fat and jolly, Phelan with his head bowed, pretending to respect all religions, the groom with his hands folded together at the waist. A thin
redheaded woman struck a chord on a harp and the ceremony began. “Dearest friends,” the rabbi said. He had made up a special ceremony for
Crystal and Manny. “We have gathered together this morning for a very special reason. A reason that makes my heart sing.”

But where was King? King was missing! Was I the only one who had noticed? “Now Crystal Louise and Emanuel Joseph, whom I held in my
arms when he was a tiny baby, whom I had the joy to name, have come together here to be joined in holy matrimony….” The rabbi went happily
on. His jowls were moving up and down beneath his collar. His jowls were dancing a dance of matrimony. Beside me, Phelan had bowed his head all the way
into his tuxedo buttons. Mrs. Manning had removed all expression from her face. If she minded Crystal being married by a rabbi she was too polite to let
it show.

And where on earth was King? How in the world had I let him get away from me? The moment the ceremony was over I dropped
the flowers on a chair and started searching. I tore through the dining room and into the kitchen and out a side door and found him right where I knew
all along I was going to.

He was in the garden. He had finished off the Red Pinocchios and the Frau Karl Druschkis and started in
on the Grandifloras. His new coat was draped over the statue of Saint Francis. From the back I could see his beautiful strong little shoulders working
away. The path was littered with the remains of roses. He had cut them down to inches above the ground, had guillotined, had decimated, had sacrificed
them. He didn't even look up when I screamed. He finished off a Marachal Neil. I ran to him.

“Why are you doing
this?” I said. “How could you do this to us? How could you do it?”

“Don't they look nice, Aunt
DeDe?” he said. “Won't she be surprised? Won't she be happy when she sees it?” I pulled him into my arms. His body was a
statue. As cold and hard as marble. It would not let go.

But I kept trying. I hugged and hugged. I hugged as hard as I could.
“Poor baby angel,” I kept saying. “Poor baby. Poor baby angel heart.”

“Won't she be
surprised,” he kept saying. “Won't she just love it when she sees it.”

ANOTHER time, Miss Crystal's brother Phelan bought
this car in Germany and shipped it to New Orleans and we had to get it off the boat. There's more to getting a car off a boat than you'd
imagine. In the end Miss Crystal had to call her cousin Harry that's a lawyer, and get him to call the owner of the shipyards and I don't
know what all. That was just to get it off the boat. Before we even started driving it to Texas.

Miss Crystal is the lady I work
for. I nurse her little girl, Crystal Anne, and I run the house. They're rich people, all the ones I'm talking about. Not that it does them
much good that I can see. Miss Crystal's married to this man she can't stand. All the money in the world will not make up for that.

I'll say one thing for her though, she manages to have herself a good time. Her and her cousin Harry are always up to something.
And Mr. Phelan, her brother that bought the car. He's always in on it too whenever he's in town. He's this big barrel-chested man that
talks real low and looks at you out of the bottom of his eyes. Looks like he's sighting you down the barrel of a gun. He's always in Africa
or getting married or something, sending Miss Crystal these clothes she don't wear. Lace dresses and negligees, satin pants, tennis dresses with
little flowers appliquéd on them, like that. That's not her style. She like plain things. She never has flowers or writing on anything she wears.

I never had been to Texas before this trip. I'd heard all about it though. One time Mr. Phelan was in town and he got this
screen and showed pictures of Texas, where he's got his ranch, and some of Brazil, where he'd been shooting jaguars. He had just got home
from Brazil and he had all this jewelry with him made out of jaguar parts. He give Miss Crystal a necklace with a jaguar claw on it to make her play
tennis better. She tried it a number of times but it never worked. She was so busy rubbing the claw for luck she forgot to look at the ball.

Finally she got so mad one day she just tore it off her neck, chain and all, and gave it to me. I put it away with the other stuff she
gives me, newspaper clippings from when we get our name in the paper for having parties, silver spoons that get caught in the disposal, her old wedding
ring. From her other marriage, to King's daddy. King's her son that smokes dope. She gave me the ring one day when she was drunk. I tried
and tried to give it back but she made me keep it.

Anyway, it was Mr. Phelan that sent this car. He's her brother but
they're not a thing alike. Miss Crystal don't like him very much. She's always badmouthing him to Mr. Harry behind his back. Saying
her daddy give him all her money. So now it's nine o'clock in the morning and they're calling her to come down to the docks and get
this car he shipped over here. Then Mr. Phelan he calls from Texas and begs her to do it. “I can't,” she says into the phone.
“I've got a match at ten. I can't leave people standing on the court to be your errand boy, Phelan. It's your car, you come and
get it.”

Well, he finally talked her into it and she puts me in the car with the baby, Crystal Anne, and off we go to the
docks. First we have to go in this little smelly office and this Cajun wants her to fill out some forms about who owns the car. Act like he think
we're trying to steal it or something.

Well, she raises Cain about the forms and then she calls her cousin Harry and he comes
over and gets it straightened out. Mr. Harry's a lawyer, but he only works part time. He doesn't keep regular hours or go in an office or
anything. He just does enough to get by. So he dresses and comes on down, all the time we're sitting in that office and I'm trying to keep
Crystal Anne from touching anything, everything's so dirty. So finally Mr. Harry comes in wearing this good-looking white suit, all shaved and
looking like he owns the world. Miss Crystal's crazy about Mr. Harry. She's always in a good mood when he's around. So he comes and
makes all these calls, then everything is okay. Crystal Anne, she's rubbed her hands all over the back of his pants but he doesn't notice
it. Miss Crystal's in a better mood now that Mr. Harry has put the Cajun in his place.

What really cheers her up though is
the car. “Look at that goddamn car,” she says. “Isn't that car just like Phelan. Isn't that the tackiest thing
you've ever seen in your life?” We're in a warehouse. Right down on the docks. It's noisy as it can be and this Cajun is driving
down a gangplank in the biggest, shinest dark green car you have ever seen in your life. A Mercedes Benz number six hundred. It's as big as a
hearse and heavy looking. “Just look at it,” Miss Crystal says. She's laughing her head off. The driver had got out and was letting
her look inside. “Where in the name of God did he get this car?”

“It's the biggest one they make,”
the Cajun said. “I've never seen one bigger and I unload them all the time.” Mr. Harry had the explanation. “He got it from the
head of the Mercedes company. It was being custom made for the president of the company. Phelan bought it right off the line and he needs someone to
drive it down to Texas. Come on, leave the other cars here. Let's take it for a spin.” He gave the Cajun a check and a twenty-dollar tip for
putting up with Miss Crystal and the four of us got in the car. Crystal Anne needed changing in the worst way. As soon as we got inside I whipped off
the old diaper and put on a new one. She'd been happy as she could be all morning, just good as gold, watching everything the way she do and
chewing on her pacifier.

“How much do you think Phelan paid for this thing?” Miss Crystal said. “I bet it cost a
fortune. He's gone too far this time, Harry. Even Phelan can't justify this car.” She was playing with the radio dials, running the
automatic antenna up and down outside the window.

“He needs it for his hunts,” Mr. Harry said. “To meet planes
when people come down for the hunts. And he needs someone to get it down to Texas right away.”

“Well, it won't be
me,” she said. “I'm not his errand boy. Let him fly up here and get it himself if he needs it so bad.”

“He can't. Some men from Jackson are going down this weekend. They're paying two thousand dollars apiece to shoot a
wild Russian boar. Phelan's got everything he owns in this operation, Crystal. You ought to want to see him make a go of it. Those animals he
imported cost a lot of money.”