The Great Santini (17 page)

"It must cost a lot of money to feed them."

"You tellin' Toomer somethin' he don't know? That's a fifty-pound bag of food under that blanket back there. These are some eatin' dogs."

"They ever bother the bees in the hives?"

"If they do, it only be for one time," Toomer laughed. "Bb-bees teach 'em fast."

"Where's your house, Toomer?"

"You lookin' right at it," Toomer said.

The house was a discarded school bus stripped of its wheels. Its axles were set on piles of cinder blocks and the formerly yellow vehicle was painted a rather haphazard eggshell white. The logo of the State of South Carolina could be read through the whitewash. To the left were three fenced-in acres of flowers. The air was rich with the combined perfume of the garden and the river which was visible through a clearing fifty yards behind the school bus.

For the next hour, Ben helped Toomer feed the dogs, put the mule to pasture, and unload the wagon. Ben carried a basket into the school bus that was very heavy although he could not see the cargo since it was covered with a layer of Spanish moss. When he set it on the small wooden table near the wood-burning stove in the back of the bus, Toomer discarded the moss through an open window and revealed a bushel of single oysters.

"I traded some honey for Mr. Oyster t-t-today," he said. "You ever eat an oyster?"

"Raw?" Ben asked.

"That's the only way to eat an oyster. I-i-i-if you cook 'em up he becomes something d-d-different from what he really is.

"I don't think I want to try it but you go on and eat as many as you want. I don't mind at all."

"Let me open you up one. M-m-m-man, when you eat an oyster, you taste the ocean and the river and the marsh and shrimp b-b-boats. Man, you bite into a livin' piece of the low-country. "He inserted a pocket knife into the joint of the shell and twisted his wrist to the right. The shell popped open. The oyster glistened in a translucent liquor that spilled onto Toomer's hand. With a certain dramatic grandiloquence, he slurped the oyster into his mouth. "Now that's fine. That's f-f-fine, white boy. When I pop me open Mr. Oyster, I think about growin' up and my papa and Captain Bimbo, the first shrimp boat I e-e-ever work on. Let me pop one of these sweet things for y-y-you."

"Why did you quit working on a shrimp boat, Toomer?"

"This g-g-gimp foot. I caught it in the winch and it took a few t-t-toes.

"That must have hurt bad."

"You'da thought so. The way I screamed and such. Here, open wide and let it slide," he said, tilting a half-shell into Ben's mouth. The oyster hit Ben's mouth. It felt warm, salty, and had the consistency of loose phlegm. For a moment, Ben thought he was going to vomit. Somehow, he got the animal down his throat.

"Wasn't that g-g-good?" Toomer said, opening another one. "You got to keep eating them. One oyster w-w-wouldn't keep a sand flea alive."

This time Ben swallowed faster as though he were ingesting his own saliva. Speed, he thought, was the secret behind the enigma of why men would torture themselves by placing these raw quivering bivalves on their tongues. He couldn't rid his mind of the image that he was eating shelled snot. But after the second oyster, he noticed a pleasant after-taste in his mouth similar to the one he experienced as a child when he was driving home with his family after a day at the beach. There was the tang of salt, of sun, of weakened brine, and grit dissolved in the breakers. Still, he was delighted to see Toomer fold his pocket knife and motion him to come outside the school bus.

"You gotta make friends with the Gray," Toomer said.

"Who's the Gray?"

"Come on out here and you'll see 'im. I got to get you to make friends or the Gray's gonna eat you up when I ain't lookin'. There he is. Get on out here, dog. I see you."

At the edge of the forest, a huge lean dog fixed a cold, green eye on Ben. His lips were curled back over his teeth and Ben thought the dog was probably a combination of Great Dane and German police. But one look at the animal cleared up any doubts Ben might have had about the acknowledged monarch of the pack.

"What's he mad about?"

"He don't like white folk too much."

"That's funny. Okra hates colored people worse than poison."

"Yeh, but that little ol' ugly dog of yours can't do much but a little bit of barkin'. The Gray there would be all over you if you didn't come up that road with me and the mule."

"I bet all the dogs would."

"No. Most of these is g-g-good dogs. All except the Gray. I got s-s-some more that'll jump you if they catch fire. I try to keep 'em stayin' right around here. Folks have shot a few of my d-d-dogs."

Slowly, the gray dog left the woods, walking with its head cocked to one side, sidling toward Toomer with one eye riveted on Ben. The other dogs cleared a path for the entrance of the Gray to the fraternity that surged through the yard. When he reached Toomer, he reared back on his hind legs and lifted his head to be scratched by the black man. But one eye stayed with Ben.

"Here, man, f-f-feed him this biscuit."

Ben held out the biscuit, but he did not offer the gift audaciously. The biscuit was held between his index finger and his thumb, and Ben's entire weight was shifted to his back foot in case the dog was more inclined to sup on his forearm than on a piece of bread.

"You're a-a-afraid of the little dog."

"Damn right I am."

The dog, detaching its forepaws from Toomer's shoulders, moved toward Ben, menacing, suspicious. With strange delicacy, the dog removed the biscuit without touching Ben's flesh.

"You ack like you feedin' an a-a-alligator, boy," Toomer laughed.

"This is the meanest looking dog I ever seen."

"Naw, what you talkin' about, m-m-man?" Toomer said, the dog licking his face. "He's not mean. He's just prejudiced."

Behind him, beneath the giant oaks arched over water, the sun had dipped below the western line and Ben saw over Toomer's shoulder a deep and chilling gold cutting across the river and lighting in small pools of water across the marsh. A blue heron panned for small fish and a sail blazed against the shimmering green of the marsh. Toomer's dogs swirled around them, nipping at each other, and keeping their distance from the Gray.

That night, Toomer put Ben in the front of a wooden bateau and steered him through small creeks, a river, and a vast sound before landing on the backside of one of the most remote barrier islands. With a Coleman lantern to lead him, Toomer secured the boat and then plunged through the woods until he came to a row of dunes covered with sea oats. The crash of breakers against sand and the distance of the journey alerted Ben while he was trailing Toomer through the forest that whatever surprise Toomer was planning had a strong relationship to the Atlantic Ocean.

No matter what ploy Ben tried, Toomer would not explain their presence on this wild and seething stretch of beach. But Toomer's eyes never wavered from the waves. The full moon hung low, a fresh coin that threw its silver grandly on the water in a ribbon that dazzled for a thousand miles.

Finally, at eleven o'clock Toomer pointed toward the breakers. Ben looked and saw nothing. Then his eye focused on the enormous shape of a sea turtle struggling out of the sea and ponderously making its way up the sand. Holding Ben's arm, Toomer put his fingers to his lips for silence. They watched as the turtle selected her spot and positioned herself for the night's excavation. With her back flippers, she began digging the hole that would become the womb of her offspring. It was not until she began laying her eggs into the hole that Toomer rose, and with his strangely graceful limp, made his way down to the turtle.

"This is the biggest thing I've ever seen, Toomer," Ben screamed. "Why didn't we come right down?"

"'Cause mama would-a gone back h-h-home," Toomer answered, stooping down behind the turtle and catching four of the eggs as they dropped into the hole. "Well keep these four to eat and let mama have the r-rest. Don't get near mama's m-m-mouth, Ben. She can do an arm some powerful hurt."

"She's crying."

"You ever see a w-w-woman have a baby? It hurt."

"I'd like to see my father run over this turtle with his car. This hunk would blow him right off the road."

"This mama don't go on no trips 'cept this one right here. She b-b-born right here on this beach and like it so well she come back and have her kids."

Unpacking his knapsack, Toomer soon started a fire on the beach. He made coffee, grits, bacon, and fried the turtle eggs as he and the white boy watched the turtle cover her eggs, camouflage her tracks, and plunge back into the sea. Opening up four oysters he had also carried with him, Toomer passed two of them to Ben who ate them with greater ease in the glow of firelight and with the coffee to wash them down.

"This is the best time I've had since I've come to this smelly town, Toomer."

"That's good. On our way back we'll gig us a few f-f-flounder at a sandbar near here. Tomorrow morning, if Gray don't get you d-d-during the night, I'll show you how to get honey out of them hives."

"I ain't going near no bees," Ben said.

"Mr. Bee is a gentlemans. He don't bother no one that don't bother him. Ain't this a fine night, white boy?" Toomer said lying on his back and staring straight up into the stars.

Ben lay back too and thought about his mother and how right she could be about some things. He knew that her sending him out with Toomer had a lot to do with his father and things he was and was not learning as the son of a fighter pilot. Here in the night he thought that somehow the secret of this marsh-haunted land resided in the quivering flesh of oysters, the rich-flavored meat of crabs, the limp of the flower boy, and the eggs of the great turtles that navigated toward their birthing sands through waters bright with the moon.

Before the change of command ceremony, the weeks seemed composed of six Saturdays to the Meecham children. Their father, as Mary Anne would say, was too much with them. One Tuesday afternoon, the heat of August lying on the town like a corpse, Colonel Meecham ordered Ben and Matthew into the car for a trip to the base.

"Why are we going to the base?" Matthew asked.

"Because I said we're going to the base," his father answered.

"No special reason, Dad?" Ben asked cautiously.

"Yeah, sportsfans. I got a special reason. I'm gonna blow apples off your head with hand grenades. Now get in the car," his father replied.

On the way to the base Colonel Meecham announced to his sons in a calm, didactic voice that they were both in critical need of a haircut.

"You're starting to look a little scruffy. Your mother let you grow too much hair on your noggins while I was overseas. You got to remember the old Marine sayin', 'Hair is the glory of a woman, but the shame of a soldier.' "

"We aren't soldiers," Matt said.

"You ain't women either," Bull answered.

"We just got one two weeks ago, Dad," Ben whined.

"Well, we're startin' back with the old regime now. The Old Corps. From now on it's gonna be a haircut every week by a qualified Marine barber. If you don't like it, you can stick it up your butts 'cause I ain't asking you if you like it or not. I'm telling you. "Then with an arch, almost imperial toss of his head, he said," The Great Santini has spoken."

Argument was fruitless once the name of Santini was invoked, both boys knew that, and both knew that if they continued to milk the issue they were merely inviting calamity. Of all the strategic fields on which to wage war against Bull Meecham, the automobile was the most precipitate. It was an enclosed arena with limited avenues of escape. The doors, of course, but their value decreased as the speed of the car increased. Also missing in the necessary props for a showdown was the presence of Lillian Meecham. Ben had instructed Matt and his sisters never to confront, challenge, or anger Bull unless their mother was in shouting distance. Over the years Ben had formulated fire-tested strategies. The other children looked to him as their strategist, their Clausewitz, and Matthew said nothing as they drove up to the main gate of the Ravenel Air Station.

As they walked into the PX, Bull asked his sons," Do both of you have your I.D. cards?"

"Yes, sir," Ben said.

"Let me check 'em to be sure they haven't expired," Bull said.

"They don't expire for two years," Matt offered.

"Give them here."

Bull studied the two cards and began to laugh.

"Those are mighty fine pictures of you two boys."

"Yeah, Dad, the Marine Corps spares no expense on those I.D. photographs. It must cost them at least a nickel for every million dependents they take pictures of," Ben said.

"They're just for identification," Bull said.

"Dad, there's not a person in the world who could identify me from that photograph."

When they entered the barbershop, Ben remembered how much he hated Marine Corps barbers. They were interchangeable from base to base, like returnable bottles. Always, their ranks were made up of humorless civilians culled from the lowest species of southerner that could plug in an electric clipper. Somehow, the barbers always became self-important, thinking of themselves as tough, no-nonsense guys because they cut the hair of tough, no-nonsense guys every day. Of course, Ben had to admit that the Marine Corps did not require artists for the job; the Corps wanted butchers, haters of hair, and surgeons who kept platoons harmoniously mutilated in the form of old masters. In the Corps barbershops, the heads of the entire base were handcrafted for the edification of visiting generals and inspection teams.

The old enmity came back to Ben as he sat down in the chair farthest away from the entrance of the shop. For a whole year he had gone to civilian barbers in Atlanta, had come to love the virile smells of tonic and powders, the laughter of old men gossiping above the drone of clippers, and all the joking and the storytelling, and the sound of the bootblack's rag popping. It had been the first time in his life when he could describe to a barber how he wanted his hair to look, then lean back, stare into a mirror that reflected his image in a dance toward infinity, and wait while the barber did his bidding, shaved his neck with hot foam, and spun him around like a king to see if the job was properly done.