A Death On The Wolf (14 page)

“
I don’t believe I am off the top of my head,” Rev. Petigru replied.

I gave a little chuckle as I took Mary Alice’s hand and we followed behind them at a good distance. Rev. Petigru might not be able to recall Isaiah 5:20, but I could—at least the relevant parts: “Woe unto them that call good evil; that put darkness for light; that put bitter for sweet!” Amen, Daddy. Amen.

— — —

Uncle Rick drove up from Bay St. Louis to watch the moon landing with us. I always looked forward to his visits because he drove the nearest thing to an exotic car we were likely to see in these parts: a ’67 Volkswagon Beetle. He would usually let me take it for a spin. It was a blast to drive, sort of like riding in an enclosed go-cart. Uncle Rick had already gotten official NASA photographs of the launch last week and he brought us two sets. One he said was for us to enjoy now, the other to put away as keepsakes. Daddy said he’d put that set in the safe deposit box next time he went to the bank. I called Frankie to see if he wanted to come to Aunt Charity’s to watch the landing, but he said he was too embarrassed to be seen as the bruising hadn’t gone down much. A fresh pang of remorse prompted another apology from me, but Frankie was gracious and told me not to worry about it. He seemed genuinely surprised that I’d called, which made me glad I had. I wanted him to know that I meant what I said in his room on Friday, that we were still friends.

At quarter past three we were all huddled around the color TV in Aunt Charity’s den. I was disappointed that the only thing on the screen was the CBS News simulation of the Lunar Module in its decent toward the moon. We listened to the radio transmissions between Mission Control and the astronauts as they piloted the LEM toward the landing zone in the Sea of Tranquility.

“
Uncle Rick, how come they don’t have a camera showing the landing?” I asked.

“
They’re filming it. There won’t be any live video transmissions until they do the walk later.”

I leaned back on the couch and resumed holding Mary Alice’s hand. Uncle Rick was on the floor in front of the TV with my sister in his lap. Daddy was in the rocker. Aunt Charity was in and out. I don’t think this event impressed her too much. I caught myself holding my breath during the last minute of the decent to the moon. Finally, when one of the astronauts said “Contact light” over the radio, Uncle Rick let out a loud whoop, jumped up, and spun Sachet around in his arms. “They’re on the moon!” he shouted. Sachet was squealing, Daddy was laughing, and I was trying to hear what was being said on the TV. Mary Alice had a big smile on her face and she was squeezing my hand. LUNAR MODULE HAS LANDED ON THE MOON appeared on the TV screen superimposed over a graphic of the LEM sitting on the moon’s surface. Wally Schirra, who was commentating the landing with Walter Kronkite, said, “We’re home,” and Kronkite exclaimed, “Man on the Moon!” Then, confirming what we all knew, Neal Armstrong uttered the second most famous words he would speak on this mission: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Aunt Charity came in the room just as I looked up at Uncle Rick who was still standing with my sister in his arms. He had tears in his eyes. He was one among thousands of engineers, technicians, and scientists who had worked long and hard for this moment and he was justifiably proud of what NASA had accomplished and the role he’d played in it.

This day had started off rocky for me. I had almost let my preoccupation with Mary Alice’s departure next month ruin our relationship. After Aunt Charity rectified that problem, I had to deal with that idiot minister and his nonsensical sermon that seemed purpose-written to insult Mary Alice. But we navigated that shoal, too. Later that night, as I sat there surrounded by my family and the girl I loved watching Neal Armstrong step out onto the surface of the moon, I was a happy and blessed boy. I was in the midst of my own Sea of Tranquility, and I knew it. But for some reason I had an uneasy feeling deep down that things were too good to be true, that this utopia could not last. Little did I know how perceptive my intuition would turn out to be.

Chapter 10

Lodge of Sorrow

When I got up Monday morning, Daddy had left a note scotch taped to the mirror in the bathroom. It simply read,
Nelson, your grandmother is coming for dinner this evening. Be nice. Love, Dad.

Elizabeth LaFontaine Gody was the only grandparent I had ever known. My mother’s parents both died young from cancer before I was born. My paternal grandfather was a banker, shot dead by a would-be bank robber in 1934, during the darkest days of the Great Depression when Daddy was seven and Uncle Rick was four. From the time I was old enough to grasp the concept, I determined that Grandma Gody was not all that fond of my father. By the age of twelve I had asked Aunt Charity about it. She said my grandmother had never gotten over Daddy enlisting in the Marines the week before he was to matriculate at the University of Mississippi. My grandmother was a graduate of Mississippi State College for Women and placed great emphasis on the value of higher education. She expected her two sons to graduate college and become professionals like their father. Uncle Rick was the only son who did. My father, in his mother’s eyes, was little more than a day laborer who never lived up to his potential. That his annual income was actually more than Uncle Rick’s, and he was considered one of the finest millwrights in Mississippi, meant nothing to my grandmother. I think Aunt Charity regretted apprising me of this bit of family history because she thought it permanently cemented the disrespect for Grandma Gody I struggled to hide whenever she came calling, or the few times each year (usually just Thanksgiving and Christmas) when Daddy would drive my sister and me to Picayune to visit our grandmother in the big old house where he was born. Now that I was old enough to understand that my grandmother thought her eldest son a failure, a failure not only in his choice of vocation, but a failure as a parent, my disrespect had blossomed into unfeeling dislike, and I would suffer her presence only because she was family—and for Daddy’s sake.

“
Why do you not like her?” Mary Alice asked me. I had just made her aware of this, and told her that Grandma Gody would be dining with us. We were sitting on Aunt Charity’s front porch and it was almost time for me to leave for work.

“
You’ll see,” I said. It was hard for Mary Alice to comprehend because she had been so close to her grandmother who had raised her. Unless Grandma Gody had been transformed by some sort of Damascus Road experience since I last saw her at Easter, I knew one meal with her would be enough for Mary Alice to understand.

— — —

When I got home from work, my grandmother’s blue and white ’57 DeSoto was parked in the driveway. There was also another car, a faded old Mercury that I’d never seen before, parked behind it. Just as I pulled up behind this strange car, Daddy came out on our front porch with three colored men. They were each dressed in dark suits and I could tell the conversation they were continuing from inside was serious. My father had a sad frown on his face as he shook these men’s hands. I parked the Honda under the carport and went in the house.

Aunt Charity was at the stove as I came into the kitchen. Something smelled good. “Who were those men Daddy was talking to?” I asked.

“
I don’t know,” she said, “but I suspect they were here about Parker.”

“
Parker? Why do you think they were here about him?” I looked over her shoulder to see what she was tending to on the stove. She was frying rib eye steaks in the skillet.

“
He didn’t come today,” she said.

My aunt’s intuition was sound because Parker was here five days a week, rain or shine. He had never missed a day since Daddy hired him. He might not do much when he got here, but he was always here. I looked over at the table, which was set for dinner. “Where’s Grandma?”

“
She took your sister in her room to read when those men came. Go wash your hands. Tell your father and grandmother that dinner will be ready in ten minutes; then you can go over and get Mary Alice.”

“
Sit up straight, Nelson,” my grandmother said as soon as Daddy said “Amen” at the end of grace. “Elbows off the table, Sachet.” Thus began our evening dinner with Grandma Gody.

“
What were those men here for, Daddy?” I asked. The platter of steaks had already made its way around the table. Next came the dish with the baked potatoes. I took one for me and one for Mary Alice and then took the bottle of French dressing and doused my tossed salad.

“
Could I have the ketchup, please,” Mary Alice said.

“
You put ketchup on steak?” I asked.

“
No, on my salad.”

I just stared at her. I’d never heard of anyone using ketchup for salad dressing. Aunt Charity started to get up, but I stopped her. “I’ll get it,” I said. I went over to the ice box and got the bottle of Hunt’s and set it down by Mary Alice’s plate. “One o’clock,” I said as I sat back down. I waited to see if she realized I was giving her the coordinates of the ketchup bottle. She moved her hand over the red Formica of the table until she touched her plate, then her hand went directly to the bottle. “Daddy? What about those men?” I asked as I watched Mary Alice pour ketchup on her salad. It looked revolting.

“
Sad news, I’m afraid,” Daddy said. “Parker Reeves passed away yesterday…or maybe Saturday night. They found him yesterday morning when they went to get him for church. The funeral is tomorrow at two o’clock.”

“
Are you going?” Aunt Charity asked.

“
Yes. Parker was a Brother. It will be a Masonic funeral.”

“
They let colored in the Lodge?” I asked. I’d never heard Daddy mention any colored members before.

He smiled. “No, the blacks have their own Lodge. You know that square brick building that sits off by itself on the other side of town like you’re going to the lumber yard?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Yes, sir,” my grandmother corrected me. It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes.

“
That’s their Lodge building,” Daddy said.

My grandmother cleared her throat and looked at Daddy. “Who is this Parker Reeves, Patrick? And why do you feel compelled to go to his funeral?”

“
Parker worked for me, Mother. He helped out around here. And I’m going to the funeral for two reasons: Because I was invited and to pay my respects.”

That answer seemed to satisfy her, so she drew a bead on Sachet, who was wrestling with the knife trying to cut her steak. “Let me cut that for you, sweetheart,” she said. Her words said “Let me help you.” Her tone said “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“
I can do it,” Sachet said.

“
Young lady, you don’t decline an offer of help that way. You say ‘No, thank you, Grandma. I can cut it myself.’”

Sachet stopped cutting and looked at our father. He gave her a little wink to let her know she hadn’t done anything wrong and she resumed cutting. “Mother,” he said, “I’m sure your granddaughter appreciates it, but she’s been cutting her own food up since she was four.”

Still focusing on Sachet, our grandmother asked, “What happened to your beautiful hair?”

Aunt Charity literally winced. We had finally gotten Sachet settled on this issue by assuring her that this new short hair style was quite becoming, and now her grandmother was dredging up the ghost of goldilocks past. I was so proud of my sister when she just calmly looked at Grandma and said, “I wanted it short and I like it short.” Sachet had finally managed to carve off a sliver of steak and she stuffed it in her mouth.

“
You’ve put too much in your mouth, dear,” Grandma said. My sister stopped chewing and pulled part of the wad of beef from her mouth. “Sachet, you don’t take food from your mouth with your fingers,” our grandmother proclaimed. My sister was totally confused and proceeded to spit the masticated beef onto her plate. “Oh, my Lord!” Grandma exclaimed.

And that’s the way dinner went for the next twenty minutes. It was an exhausting meal. My grandmother was only content when she was presiding over carefully orchestrated crises that she was an expert at creating ex nihilo. After she had reduced my sister to tears, she tried twice to draw me into her sideshow, but I had become adept at deflecting her ambushes. At times like this I was sure my father, had we been Roman Catholic, would have been a prime candidate for sainthood. As unbearable as I found Grandma Gody, Daddy just took it all in stride. I never saw him lose his temper or say an untoward word to his mother. If he disagreed with something she said, or a directive she delivered to my sister or me, he could always find a way to express himself with diplomacy, mollifying her while at the same time letting his children know that everything was okay. It was fascinating to watch their interaction and I could not imagine what it would be like to have to deal with a parent in such a fashion.

— — —

It was a little past ten and I was lying in bed reading. The small fan over on my desk was humming away, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover the sound of strange voices. I got up and turned the fan off. The voices belonged to men and they were coming from the living room. I switched off the lamp beside my bed and crept over to my bedroom door. I still could not make out what was being said, so I opened the door a few inches.