3 Day Terror (3 page)

T
HE CEILING
of the Yellowhammer Country Club was hung with eyeballs made of motley crepe paper and tiny Christmas-tree lights. They dangled from strings, winking and bobbing above the heads of the dancers, and behind the eight-piece orchestra on the bandstand bedecked with dahlias, a large red and white poster ordered the participants to:

At a back table laden with empty dessert dishes and overflowing ashtrays, Jud Forsythe was saying, “Put it this way, Arnie. Our Negroes aren’t like the Deep South Negroes, and we in Bastrop don’t feel the way folks in the Deep South do about them. In some parts of the state, you’d as soon try to jump rope in quicksand as integrate the schools, but here it’s different. Folks may not like it, but everybody knows it’s a court order.”

Poppy Porter took this time to excuse herself from the table, and go back to the bar to phone her mother-in-law. The children were staying at their grandparents’ tonight, and the way the evening had been going, Poppy knew she and Troy would be out past midnight; felt she ought to check with Gay, even if for no other reason than the fact she knew Troy’s mother would disapprove if she neglected to. As she walked down the long room, small but shapely, the new taffeta gown — colored light blue, like her eyes — hugging her figure, the long soft brown hair touching her shoulders, the bangs bobbing along the forehead of her pretty snub-nosed face, she could feel Troy’s admiring eyes follow her and thought, At least someone in the Porter family approves of me. And was glad for the good conviviality she and Troy were enjoying with her own family this evening, and with their closest friend, Jud Forsythe. It was wonderful to have Jud along with them again. Everyone in Bastrop felt he had mourned Francie’s death long enough; had felt in the first place that Jud had deserved more in a wife than Francie had proved to be, poor thing.

Poppy’s father, along with Troy, watched his daughter’s exit with an affectionate expression on his thin, bespectacled face, and then answered Jud. “I hope you’re right about it. I don’t really expect any trouble on Monday morning, but you just never know.”

“That’s right,” Troy Porter agreed. He was almost always in complete agreement with Arnold Belden. Troy’s father-in-law had been Troy’s mentor since he was a boy; had been the reason Troy had gone North to Belden’s alma mater, Harvard, to study law; the reason he had given up his practice down on West Tennessee to run for the state legislature; and the reason he had given freely of his spare time to help the school board, of which Belden was principal, fight against the desegregation suit. If Troy were actually to sit down and analyze Poppy’s father’s influence on his career, he would probably have to concede that Belden was also the reason for the celebration tonight — for Troy had announced to everyone at dinner that he was going to run for the state senate.

Belden said, “The kids have taken it well enough, from all I can gather — but there are always a few troublemakers.”

His wife, a little like Poppy, wearing fresh white net with a red rose pinned to her gray, loosely-waved hair, shuddered slightly and said, “Yes. Crabb Suggs and his kind.”

Jud smiled at her. “Oh, I know. And Gus Chandler and Duboe. But it’s in-season; that’s in our favor. There’s cotton to be ginned; folks are busy.”

“Then there’s Chad’s editorials,” Arnold Belden said.

Jud looked puzzled, running his finger along his clerical collar. There were some in Bastrop who said he put on airs, wearing his collar backwards like a priest, but most of them were Methodists who wished secretly that Reverend Baird, their minister, would wear some garment that would distinguish him more from the man on the street; wished too that the services down at Second Methodist had a trifle more flair to them; but always maintained: “We don’t need incense and azaleas and red velvet kneepads to warm up to the Lord, like the Episcopalians. Times you’d think they were having a medieval orgy over there on Linn Avenue, instead of a plain old God-fearing Sunday-morning worship.”

“But Chad’s all for integration,” Jud said. “Chad was for it before you, Arnie, or Troy, or any of us.”

“I was never for it,” Troy Porter snapped; then, noticing Poppy come back into the room, relaxed his face; thought how lovely and sweet she looked — and vulnerable too, he thought, wincing inwardly at the memory of the hurt she had suffered long ago before their marriage. His tone was milder as he continued. “Hell, over the past five years I been taking time off to help Arnie and the school board fight integration. I fought the suit because I thought it was the right thing to do. That doesn’t mean I believe in violating a court order now, but it doesn’t mean I’m for integration now either.”

Jud Forsythe sighed, put his palm up much the way he did on Sundays for the Benedictus. “All right, I didn’t mean to say anyone was
for
integration — ”

“Chad
is,
though. That’s always been obvious.” Troy Porter found it difficult to let his anger subside, or to control his hostile impulses whenever Chad’s name came up in conversation. “He doesn’t come right out and say so in the
Citizen.
Thank God Cass is less radical and has her say in the paper’s policies, but he thinks so!”

Arnold Belden said, “Well, he’s coming out with it now. That’s what I mean, Jud, about his editorials. I think he’ll stir things up.”

It was while Belden was speaking that Troy looked up at Poppy’s face, and knew something was wrong. He stood and held her chair out for her, seated her, searching her eyes; whispered, “Kids okay?” She nodded, still frowning; still with that expression that said she wanted to say something. Troy knew that look, knew it could spell trouble or trivia; but to Poppy’s mind meant all was not well.

Jud was carrying on the conversation, “Chad’s only saying we ought to abide by the court decision, as far as I can see.”

“Listen” Belden said, “there are all sorts of ways to say that, if it has to be said in the first place. The law’s been passed and people respect the law around here. But that’s different from liking it. There’s something about Chad’s editorials that smacks of rubbing folks noses in it, the way you do a dog’s in his mess.”

“You all talking about Chad?” Poppy asked.

“The same old subject,” Troy reassured her. “Integration. The last subject I want to talk about at this point.”

“That’s the good politician,” Jud grinned.

Mrs. Belden sipped her coffee, set the cup on the saucer gently and said, “I agree, Troy. Let’s forget Monday for this evening.”

Behind them the Choctaw Ramblers were playing “Sweet Molly Malone,” and white-coated waiters were clearing the front tables. Jud leaned back and lit his pipe, and Troy ground out a cigarette in the ashtray. There were several slow seconds when no one at the table said anything, then Poppy spoke up. “I just called Gay to see how the children were. She told me the strangest thing.”

Troy looked down at her, and when she saw his regard she forced a quick little laugh. “Oh, its nothing serious.” She paused, then slipped into the familiar vernacular of the Southern female, her face flushed, “Law, I’d ah liked to die when I heard it.”

“Well, heard what?” Troy asked.

“Delia Benjamin,” Poppy said.

“What’d old Dee do now?” her husband asked. He’d always admired Dee Benjamin’s spunk; always secretly savored the recollection of Dee’s jilting Jack Chad wick.

She didn’t
do
anything,” Poppy said. “She’s back.”

Jud Forsythe said, “Back here in Bastrop?”

“Yes. Gay said Senior called her, said she was in the drugstore — just a little while ago.”

“Good!” Troy said. “That’s what the town needs to lift its dragging spirits. You know something about that girl? When I was elected to the legislature she sent me a wire, by golly. Said something about get in there and fight. She was always a fighter.” Troy chuckled, shaking his head, and stretching his long knees out under the table. He was a big man with a husky six-foot frame, built solidly, the sort who seemed to belong in the clothes he was wearing this evening — the white linen dinner jacket and black pants, and well-shined black shoes. He seemed at home in the formal attire most people in Bastrop donned only for special events, and then grudgingly.

“Poor Flo,” Pam Belden sighed. “She’ll have her hands full.”

Arnie Belden made a face at her, “Aw, come on, now, Dee’s not wild as all that. What? Just because she married herself a Yankee, and chose to abandon Paradise to go live up in the devil’s territory?”

“A Yankee — ” Pam Belden smoothed her hair with her hands and said softly — ”and a Jew”

“Why we got Jews right here in Bastrop,” Arnie said. “Come on, now, Pam.”

“I never think of them that way.”

“Well, they are
that way.
That doesn’t sound like you.”

Troy broke in, “To see your face, darling, I thought you were going to announce that Duboe Chandler was going to run against me or something! So Dee’s back in Bastrop! Hell, I could use her for a campaign manager.”

Poppy looked across the table at Jud Forsythe. He met her glance for a brief instant, then turned his eyes away.

Belden was saying, “Seriously, Troy, I think your chances are pretty good. Of course you’ve got to watch Dave Polk. He’s got a good name in the state, and — ”

“But he’s a bachelor,” Pam Belden said. “I know I’d never vote for a bachelor. People like a family man; people trust a man more if he’s got a wife and kids. I know — ” but she stopped, aware of how what she had been saying might sound to Jud; she stammered, and finished with: “Law, I don’t know anything about politics. I ought to just keep my big mouth shut, hmm?”

“No, I think you’re right,” Troy said, “people got to identify with the man they’re voting for. People got to think to themselves, Why he’s just like you and me. And you know full well he can be a bigot, a jellyfish, or a Christ, but if people can just have that first chance to think he’s like them, then from there on in they’ll frost the cake and serve it up. Even God himself had to produce a son to get some respect down here, and a good politician’s got to do a hell of a lot more. He’s got to go to church, and he’d better have gone to war. He’s got to have a wife, kids, a dog and a low-priced car. He can’t get caught sinning, but he better seem capable of it. If he likes a squash game, he better learn golf instead — and in the South, he’s better off learning how to hunt coon. No matter where he is, he better know how to talk.”

Arnold Belden said, “You don’t have any trouble doing that, my boy.”

“What worries me — ” Troy Porter continued, and Poppy, reaching across to touch Jud Forsythe’s sleeve, whispered, “Dance, Jud?”

• • •

Troy Porter did know how to talk. He had talked so well that he had talked himself into being the youngest member ever elected to the Alabama State Legislature, and in Bastrop — he had talked himself into the hearts of nearly ninety per cent of its citizens. Like people anywhere, hero-hungry and celebrity-beholden, they had hastened to embroider and embellish. Troy became their dream of wish fulfillment, their ego, and in some cases, their id; and he became a kind of living advertisement for their frustrated potentials. They said of him that he was a born winner; won at everything — had, ever since a kid; that he was more handsome than anyone in Hollywood, on TV, or in the picture magazines, and more down-to-earth than Will Rogers, Norman Vincent Peale, or Steve Allen. They said he knew enough to be on the $64,000 Question, and those who weren’t already writing Ralph Edwards to say he ought to be on This Is Your Life, wrote the $64,000 Question. Children bragged they played with his children; teen-agers that they “sat” with his children. The males estimated that Troy could screw five times a night, seven nights a week; and the females spoke of his gentle manner, his cowlick, and his soft-laughing dimples, that they’d like to poke, just once, with their finger; just a little, playful poke. Law, what yah think he’d
do!

He was Bastrop’s prodigy and Bastrop’s private property, on loan, only, to the government of Alabama. They forgot the wildly undignified episodes between Troy and Poppy before their marriage, just as they forgot lesser embarrassments and all his flaws; and like people awakening sweetly to some remembered dream which had momentarily anesthetized reality, they remembered the dream
they
had manufactured, in the person of Troy Porter.

Jud Forsythe never had to recall Troy’s and Poppy’s tempestuous times in the years immediately following Dee Benjamin’s departure. He had watched from the beginning the gradual recurrent appearance of Jack Chadwick’s convertible in front of the Beldens’, attempted aimlessly to avoid answering Troy’s pained questions: Where’s Poppy, Jud? You live across from her, did you see her? Has Poppy talked about it to you, Jud. Look, I’ve got to know Jud. Can’t you level with me? Does she mention it at all? He had seen Poppy slim down to sliver-size when the convertible vacillated between the Beldens’ and the Beggsoms’, seen Poppy stagger through a myriad gay parties with Chad, as drunk and disheartened as he was, as though she too was cracked-heart-haunted by the ghost of Delia Benjamin, grief-ridden and stunned — only to end those evenings off in a corner alone, crying in a lace hanky, while Chad stood swaying across the room, hanging onto a table in a desperate attempt to steady himself before the sober and sympathetic figure of Cass Beggsom.

Jud — and all of Bastrop — had witnessed the sudden, whip-quick slapping which Troy had administered to Poppy at one such party, seen Troy himself weep immediately after; and heard the crashing of glass Poppy caused as she fell back against the Senior Porters’ antique water-pitcher collection.