Rita Will_Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser Page 3

  Carrie, to her credit, didn’t turn her back or run to another room and shut the door in a huff. She waited. Daddy placed me in her arms and said, “Mother, this is your granddaughter and she’s beautiful.”

  Even Carrie, in all her hatefulness, couldn’t resist me at that moment. Why, I don’t know. By now, thanks to Mom and Dad’s feeding me around the clock, I’d gained enough weight to pass for a pink cannonball.

  Pretty soon everyone was cooing and aahing, and Carrie was bouncing me around and telling Dad how a baby must be treated.

  Wonderful though that moment must have been, Carrie Brown couldn’t truly warm to me. I know she loved Dad. The distance of years has taught me many things, one being that Caroline Brown may have been cold to me but she was fundamentally a good woman and she loved her boys.

  The problem was she couldn’t leave anyone alone. She lived her children’s lives for them until the day she died, and Dad, number-one son, deeply disappointed her twice.

  My earliest memories of her are how peachy, creamy and rich her skin was, like Devon cream. She had the skin of an angel. I also remember the smell of fresh-baked bread and her flourishing little garden along the fence line between her house and a neighbor’s.

  One sunny June I toddled after her—I couldn’t have been more than three—bubbling as I walked. I was a happy cherub, singing, chirping and laughing. For whatever reason, I was with Mamaw alone. We both loved flowers, a step in the right direction. Mom, a crack gardener, had given me a set of baby tools. At the ripe old age of three I considered myself an expert and I prattled off the names of irises and cabbage roses.

  The vibrant flowers swayed in rows like soldiers. Even Carrie’s flowers were incredibly orderly.

  Nestled under a drooping magnificent white peony was a pile of dog excrement. I had not yet developed a sense of what was proper to note and what should be left unremarked. I commented on this gift from a neighboring dog, and then with a sense of discovery and excitement, I said, “Look, Mamaw, it’s got peanuts in it!”

  I didn’t know that dogs ate peanuts. Well, I didn’t know a lot of things, but I knew at that moment that Carrie felt such an observation was not in keeping with a young lady’s deportment. I was hustled out of the garden into the nook by Papaw’s desk. A National Geographic rested on a window seat. She told me to look at the pictures, so I did.

  Each time I visited Mamaw, once a week like clockwork, I admired her garden, kept my mouth shut and poured over those yellow-bound copies of National Geographic while she cooked another of her delicious meals.

  I felt to my bones that Mamaw didn’t like me. There was nothing I could do to change that.

  Claude and Jeun, his wife, treated me with kindness. Even Earl, a cold fish, never gave me a harsh word. His wife, Helen, often went out of her way to give me something to eat.

  I don’t remember Carrie or Reuben Brown ever buying me a Co’Cola, a book or anything else spontaneously. They gave me a birthday present and a Christmas present each year. It was always something practical, which was fine. Even as a child I liked practical things, especially tools. The presents were beautifully wrapped.

  Mother bit her tongue. On the subject of her mother-in-law she tried very hard not to explode in fury. She didn’t need to, since Aunt Mimi usually did it for her. Aunt Mimi would sometimes be so disgusted with Carrie that she could hardly say hello to her.

  Aunt Mimi had taken in a homeless girl, Etta, also not on the social register, and raised her with her two daughters, Virginia and Julia Ellen (named after Mom), so she thought Carrie’s selfishness, as she put it, contemptible. Both Buckingham girls would help a child or an animal in need. The number of kittens, puppies, bunnies, birds and squirrels they doctored is beyond counting.

  Dad didn’t like his mother’s attitude any more than the Buckinghams did, but she was his mother. He loved her and he too refused to speak against her, but she hurt him. I don’t know if she ever realized how much she hurt him. He wanted her to love the people he loved, his two girls, Mom and me. She couldn’t or wouldn’t do it.

  When I was in first grade, one Sunday Carrie attended her worship service and emerged a shaken woman. What I remember best about this occasion is that Mom, Dad, Aunt Mimi and her husband. Uncle Mearl, were befuddled with amazement.

  The pastor of her church had preached a passionate sermon on loving all God’s children. He and his wife had just adopted an orphan and he beseeched his congregation not to visit the sins of the father on the child.

  Afterward Mamaw and Papaw met with Dad. I don’t know what they said or even if tears were shed, but they admitted they were wrong and they would try to set things to rights.

  After that Mamaw smiled at me more and Papaw answered my torrent of questions. I truly believe they tried, but the damage was done. I never loved them.

  I behaved correctly. Mother would have killed me if I hadn’t.

  From Carrie I learned that piety is like garlic, a little goes a long way. Whenever I see someone utterly secure in the rightness of their restrictive beliefs I think, “Ah yes, this one’s kin to Mamaw,” and I pop into reverse and get the hell out of there.

  I also remember that the only spot in heaven promised to anyone by Christ was that given to the thief who died on the cross with him. I often wonder if these strident Christians, I’m-better-than-you folks, read the same Bible I do.

  For Carrie’s sake I hope she got to heaven. She died in 1960. However, if our Eastern sisters and brothers are right and there is karma, I expect that Caroline Brown is right back here on earth learning more lessons. For myself, I hope she’s come back as a dog that eats peanuts.

  3

  What a Friend I Have in Jesus

  Oh, how big is the world! Every child thinks this. Chairs are unclimbable. You see the hems of skirts sway. A tulip stares at you eye-level and wasps are big as B-52s.

  Mom’s cat, a giant, really was bigger than I was for a while. Mickey’s purring thrilled me. I tried to purr. He’d roll over and display his major tummy; I’d roll over and display mine. He’d jump. I’d jump. He’d climb up a tree and taunt me, but he always crawled into my crib at night and I’d wake up with Mickey staring at me, purring like thunder.

  One warm May day the lilacs bloomed. I must have been two. Yellow swallowtails, black swallowtails, lovely blue butterflies and viceroys fluttered over the delectable blooms. I remember the colors, I remember the slight brush of air as the butterflies flew next to my cheek. I remember Mother pointing them out and giving me their names, which was a switch since I was usually the pointer. I’d wobble around, point and say, “Deeze.” In fact, “deeze” was my favorite verb, noun, adjective and adverb. Until the day her parts finally wore out. Mom would look at me and say, “Deeze,” or I’d say it to her, and we always knew exactly what the other was talking about.

  Mother, a dedicated gardener, planted lavender lilacs in the yard, with white ones closer to the house. Mother would drop into one of the Adirondack chairs and inhale the fragrance.

  Mickey lurked under the biggest lilac bush. I flopped down on my stomach to see him. I think that was the first time I realized that butterflies are different from cats, but I didn’t know I was different from a cat.

  On that day Mother picked me up so I could see more butterflies. Aunt Mimi drove up, and our neighbor, Peggy Cook, called Cookie, was there, too.

  Mom and Dad were the hub of a wheel of friendship whose spokes radiated in every direction. I don’t remember one day under their roof that someone didn’t drop by for a cup of coffee, a lemonade, a Co’Cola or stronger spirits in the evening. No one said “a drink.” That was “common.”

  Laughter. I lived in a world of their cascading laughter.

  Mickey and I would sit side by side on the floor and look up at the adults, who occasionally looked down at us. We thought we were the center of attention because someone would scratch Mickey or kiss me. He’d get handed a sandwich scrap and I’d get puffed rice, which doesn’t sound l
ike much, but I loved dry puffed rice right out of the box, and still do.

  Mom and Dad’s friends ranged from my age to the nineties. Great-Grandpa Huff was pushing one hundred. He’d fought in the War Between the States as a child; at the end, the South would take anyone who could hoist a gun. He was so old his skin was translucent. Like all the Huffs, his mind raced along. No Huff ever went crazy, although they could drive you nuts.

  Great-Grandpa Huff would put me in his lap and tell me about the war. I don’t remember one thing he said. I just knew it was important and the wrong side won.

  It was because my mother’s people had fought for the South that Juts, born in Maryland, still thought of herself as southern. But if she hadn’t been southern-born, she’d have come up with some other way to be different.

  Aunt Mimi kept her own salon. The two sisters competed in everything. Aunt Mimi, more Catholic than the Pope, busied herself with moral uplift more than Mom and Dad did.

  Daddy’s brothers and their wives often stopped by. The Brown men had deep voices. His mother and dad visited infrequently. When they did, it was a state occasion. Mother would be down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor. Aunt Mimi would be right there with her. The Buckingham girls fussed but they stuck together and worked together.

  On those rare instances when I thought I might not be the center of attention, I would sway and clap my hands, my version of dancing. Then the adults would clap their hands and Mom would say, “Dance!”

  Reports are that I fell down more than I danced, but I was happy. I do remember people saying, “Fall down, go boom!” But everyone says that to a rug rat.

  By some miracle on Mother’s part I had learned that I was not the center of attention in church. Jesus was.

  The problem was I never saw Jesus. I saw a gorgeous painting of him behind the altar. The Ascension.

  Christ Lutheran Church is a stunning example of early Georgian architecture. The restraint and chaste beauty of this structure might even make a believer out of an atheist. I was generally quiet, so my parents took me to services. Matins, the big eleven o’clock service, or vespers, my favorite.

  However much I loved the airiness of the church, the throaty organ and Pastor Neely, truly a man of God, I wanted to see Jesus. I began to search for him behind the curtains at home. I’d bend down and peek under the stairs, where Mickey hid. Seemed like a good place to me. I’d wiggle free from Mom and Dad after the service—I knew better than to even move a muscle during the service—and I’d look for Jesus.

  Once I stood in the vestibule and warbled “Holy, Holy, Holy.” I didn’t know any words to the hymn other than the “holy” part but I thought maybe if I sang pretty, Jesus would show up. He didn’t.

  Then I wondered, what if he had shaved off his beard? A friend of Dad’s once shaved off his mustache and when I saw him for the first time afterward I cried. Maybe Jesus was right in front of my face but he had shaved off his mustache and beard. That troubled me.

  I’d ask Mom and Dad, “Where’s Jesus?”

  First they tried the usual explanation. “He’s in heaven.”

  I’d point up to the sky and say, “Where?” I wanted to see him. He could peek through a cloud. Jesus could do anything.

  I evidenced some curiosity about the Blessed Virgin Mother too, but not nearly as much as about Jesus. For one thing, she wore powder blue robes, and Jesus usually wore a red cloak over his white robe. I loved red. And no one told me that the BVM, as Mom called her to torment Aunt Mimi, loved children. I figured she was fixated on Jesus.

  Aunt Mimi’s explanation of why I couldn’t see Jesus was so complicated that I don’t recall a word of it. It was wonderful that she could remember her catechism, but as a toddler, I wasn’t impressed.

  Frustrated, Mother finally told me, “Jesus is in our hearts.”

  I wailed, “But I can’t see him there and it means he’s tiny. I want him to be big.”

  Inconsolable, I cried myself to sleep. Poor Mickey wore himself out licking my tears away.

  The next Sunday, Daddy took me to Pastor Neely’s private chambers after the service. Pastor Neely was in full regalia: he wore the green surplice for the season of Trinity. He had a voice that could roll back the tide. He must have been in his late thirties then. Children can’t judge age but I remember a man of great warmth and energy. He smiled and laughed and shook people’s hands as though he was glad to touch them.

  Whatever he told me satisfied me. I stopped crying when I couldn’t find Jesus. That doesn’t mean I didn’t still want to see him. I did. I just stopped bothering the adults about it.

  Looking back, isn’t it amazing that a busy man, running a huge church like Christ Lutheran, would sit down with a very small parishioner and treat her question as though it was worth his attention?

  One time I asked Pastor Neely if cats, dogs and horses went to heaven when they died, because if not, I didn’t want to go to heaven either, even if Jesus was there. Mother nearly passed out. When Aunt Mimi got wind of what I’d said, I heard the word blasphemer for the first time.

  I do remember Pastor Neely’s answer: “God loves all his creatures. All souls are dear to him.” He reassured me that if Mickey died first, I’d see him when my time came.

  It may not be correct Lutheran dogma, but Pastor Neely eased my heart.

  Aunt Mimi began a campaign of subversion. She and Mom battled over religion daily. It added spice to both their lives. Whenever Mother was busy Aunt Mimi would tell me her version—the Church of Rome’s. She’d drag me to mass, where I adored the candles. St. Rose of Lima burned more candles than Christ Lutheran.

  However much Aunt Mimi wished to guide me to the One True Faith, her ardor cooled on a memorable Good Friday.

  By now I was three and a half. My vocabulary had exploded. I had begun to read easy stuff like newspaper headlines. It scared Mom so, she took me to Dr. Horning. He told her to give me every book she could find. Mother was terrified that I wasn’t normal. In those days normal children didn’t read until the first grade. Dr. Horning told her normal children grew up to be boring adults—“Give her books.” Bless that man. Mother, a rebellious soul herself, worried that I wouldn’t fit in. Of course I wouldn’t fit in. Everyone on either side of the Mason-Dixon line knew I was illegitimate. Well, maybe that’s why she didn’t want me to call attention to myself.

  However, she did get me books and I roared through them. Daddy read me newspaper editorials. He said there were two sides to every story, so in the morning he’d read me the Democratic point of view from the York Gazette, and at night he’d read the editorial from the Republican paper, the York Dispatch. He would simplify the issues, but he was determined that I learn to think for myself and to gather information.

  Back to Good Friday, when I distinguished myself by upstaging my invisible friend, Jesus.

  The difference between a Catholic, an Episcopalian and a Lutheran is the difference between tired knees and happy knees. Theologians can froth at the mouth about church doctrine, married and unmarried clergy, priestly intercessions and other items worth hundreds of years of bitching and moaning. For me it’s how many times you want to kneel.

  Mother and Aunt Mimi vied for the greater show of devoutness. Aunt Mimi won, since Mother’s sense of humor and fun sidetracked her from perfect Christian purity. But she didn’t break Lent and rarely missed a Sunday or an important feast day. On Good Friday, a very holy day, Mom’s butt was bound to be warming the fifth pew.

  Of course. Aunt Mimi would attend the first mass of the day, usually at 6 A.M., then return for the special afternoon service, since Christ is reported to have died at 3 P.M.

  Both Christ Lutheran and St. Rose of Lima, as well as every other church in town, swarmed with people dressed somberly. It wasn’t until Easter Sunday that the big hats broke out like measles.

  Since I usually behaved in church. Mother had no reason to believe this Good Friday would be any different. Perhaps she forgot that I had slept through
the other Good Friday services of my life, all two of them. I was big enough now to stay awake.

  I’d seen Aunt Mimi and her daughters that morning as they returned from mass. Every day Mother and Aunt Mimi either called each other on the phone at 6:30 A.M. or stopped by for coffee. Except at their places of worship, they were inseparable. Mother showed them my outfit for the Good Friday service. She also showed them my Easter outfit, pale yellow with ribbons interwoven on the bodice, a beautiful straw hat with a black grosgrain ribbon, little anklets with pink roses embroidered at the top, and a tiny pair of black patent leather Mary Janes. The praise turned my head. I wanted to wear the Easter ensemble to the Good Friday service. It took all four of them to explain that just wasn’t done.

  I bet I heard that phrase a million times: “That’s just not done.” Or else it was the more pointed “Our people don’t do that.” I finally calmed down, agreeing to be dressed like a sorrowful sparrow for that day only.

  When we walked down the aisle to our pew I noticed that everything was shrouded in black velvet: the two-story windows, the altar, lectern and pulpit. Pastor Neely’s vestments were black velvet as well. And there were no flowers.

  At three o’clock, just as Pastor Neely’s sermon ended, the curtains were drawn and the candles on the altar were extinguished. The organ burst into the most dolorous sounds and rumbled beneath my seat.

  “Jesus is dead!” I bellowed at the top of my not inconsiderable lungs, and burst into sobs. Mother surely made an effort to stem the tide of my grief, but then I shrieked, “Mommy, turn the lights back on.”

  No amount of cajoling or threatening promises could stop my crying or my commentary. Finally, Mother picked me up and carried me out into the sunshine. Glad though I was to see the light, I was afraid I’d never hear of Jesus again.