Landry 05 Tarnished Gold (5 page)

"I'm sorry, sir," I said, my eyes down.
"Why did you do such a thing?"
I didn't reply except to say, "I'm sorry."
"Well, it's not a very auspicious way to begin your adult life. I'll take that," he said, seizing the box that contained my gown and cap. "Who knows what you'll do next, and these things are expensive."
He pivoted and marched off. Everyone who heard was glaring at me. Defeat seemed all around me.
I looked away and started for the exit.
"She should have graduated in the swamp with her animal friends instead of us," someone shouted, and everyone laughed. I emerged from the laughter like someone drowning in a murky pool and hurried outside where I found Mama, worried, waiting. Daddy was off to the right shouting at someone who had passed a remark about me.
"I'm sorry, Mama," I said before she could ask why I had run off the stage.
"It's all right, honey. Let's go before your father gets arrested again. Jack!" she cried. He stopped shouting, his fist dangling above him, and looked at us. Then he glared at the man with whom he was arguing.
"Lucky for you I gotta go," he spat.
When he joined us, I realized quickly why Mama had been sitting with a gray face beside him. He reeked of whiskey, despite his clean appearance.
"Why'd you run off like that, Gabriel?" he asked. "Some of these people think you're as mad as a rabid dog."
"Why do you think she run off?" Mama snapped. "The way you behaved, screaming out like that, everyone laughing at you."
"Is that why? I was just proud, is all. Can't a man be proud of his daughter anymore?"
"Proud's proud, being a fool is just being a fool," Mama replied.
"Aaa, who cares what these stuffy folks think anyway. You looked great up there, Gabriel. Let's go celebrate."
"Figures you'd get home in time for that, Jack Landry," Mama said.
"Quit whippin' me, woman. A man can take only so much before he explodes."
Mama flicked him a scathing glance. He looked away quickly and fell behind us as we trekked toward home and the party Mama had prepared all by herself.
Fewer people attended than Mama had expected, and none of my classmates appeared. I knew it was because of my behavior and I felt just terrible about it, but Mama wouldn't be discouraged, nor would she permit a single sad face. Her food and the food her friends brought was wonderful. The men and especially Daddy had plenty of homemade whiskey to drink. The Rice brothers provided the music. They played the fiddle, the accordion, and the washboard. People danced and ate until long after nightfall. Every time someone started to leave, Daddy would jump up and grab him by the elbow, urging him to stay.
"The night's young," he declared. "We got lots to drink and eat yet.
Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Let the good times roll."
I never saw him so excited and happy. He danced one jig after another, dragged Mama out to do the two-step, performed somersaults and handstands, and challenged every man to Indian wrestle.
People ate and scraped their plates clean. The women helped Mama clean up. No one bothered me about what happened at graduation, but most had some sort of advice or another when they stopped to wish me good luck.
"Don't be in a hurry to go and get married. Marry the right man."
"Think about getting a job in the cannery, maybe."
"If I were your age, I'd go to N'orleans and find work, or try to get a job on a steamboat."
"Raise a family when you're young so you're not too old to enjoy life when they finally up and leave."
I thanked everyone. Daddy drank himself into a stupor and fell asleep in the hammock, his arm dangling, his snoring so loud, we could hear him clear across the yard.
"I'm just going to leave him out there," Mama told her friends. "Won't be the first time; won't be the last."
They nodded and went their way. When everyone was gone, I sat with Mama on the gallery for a while. Daddy was still sawing trees in the hammock.
"It was a wonderful party, Mama. But now you're so exhausted."
"It's a good exhaustion. When you do a labor of love, it don't matter how tired you get, honey. The pleasure soothes you and eases you into a restful sleep. It's just too bad your father came soaked with whiskey to your ceremony and embarrassed you that way. It near broke my heart to see you rush off that stage."
"I'm sorry I did that, Mama."
"It's all right. Most people understood."
I had the greatest urge to explain to her why it wasn't just what Daddy had done. I would begin by telling her about Monsieur Tate's eyes on me and then .
But I just couldn't get the words up from the bottom of the trunk I had buried them in.
Mama stood up, gazed at Daddy for a moment, shook her head, and started to go into the house.
"You coming, Gabriel?"
"In a while, Mama."
"Don't think you're not exhausted too, honey," she warned.
"Oh, I know I am, Mama."
She smiled and we hugged.
"I'm darn proud of you, sweetheart. Darn proud."
"Thank you, Mama."
She went in and I stepped off the gallery and walked around to the dock. I took off my moccasins to dip my feet in the water and sat there for a while, listening to the cicadas and the occasional hoot of an owl. From time to time I heard a splash and saw the moonlight glimmer off the back of a gator sliding along the oily surface of the water and into the shadows.
I stared into the swamp, fixing my eyes on the inky darkness, and I wished and wished until I thought I saw him . . . the handsome young Cajun ghost. He was floating over the water and beckoning to me, tempting me.
If there really was a handsome young man haunting the swamps, I thought, I could forget the terrible thing that had happened to me. I'd even be willing to fall in love with him the way I had described to Yvette and Evelyn, and exchange my soul with his. I'd rather be a ghost, floating along through eternity, than a violated young woman right now, I thought.
His smile faded in the darkness and became a group of fireflies dancing madly around each other.
All the magic of this day evaporated. The stars seemed to shrink away, and dark clouds slid from behind silvery ones and chased away the moon.
I sighed, got up, and walked back to the house, not full of hope and dreams for tomorrow, as I should be, but weighed down, soaked with terror about the days to come.
Did I have a little of Mama's clairvoyance? I hoped not. I hoped I was just tired.

3
Hiding With Mama
.
Summer had begun as timidly as a white-tailed

deer the year I graduated high school, but a little more than a week after the ceremony, the heat became more oppressive than I had ever known it to be. Mama said it was the worst she could recall, and Daddy said she had finally gotten her wish: She had brought him hell on earth. Nights were no cooler than the days. At times the air was so heavy with humidity, my hair would become damp and my dress would cling like a second layer of skin to my body.

All of Nature appeared just as depressed. Every animal restricted its travel to bare necessity. The gators dug themselves deeper into the mud; the bream seemed reluctant to come out of the water even to feed on the clouds of bewildered insects. Part of the problem was we didn't have much of a breeze coming up from the Gulf. The air was so still, leaves looked wilted and painted against the sky, and birds looked stuffed and fastened on branches.

What little tourist business there normally was during the summer months dried up. A snake could curl around itself in the shady area of our road and feel safe. We could count on our fingers the vehicles that rumbled by between morning and night. Every day Mama complained about how hard things were getting, but Daddy continued to sweep aside problems as if they were dust on his boots. Mama made some income and bartered food from her
traiteur
missions, two of which involved bad snakebites, and another three involved insect bites. There were more skin rashes than ever, lots of heat exhaustion, and then finally there was Mrs. Townley, who went into a strange coma that lasted nearly a month.

Even though Daddy had little or no work, when an out-of-town contractor finally came by and offered him and some of the other men work in Baton Rouge, he was reluctant to take it, complaining it meant he would be gone nearly six weeks. Mama told him he was gone nearly that long on and off, drinking and gambling anyway, so what difference did it make? At least now he could send hone some money for us.

Despite the harsh line she took with him, I saw sadness in her eyes when it came time for him to get into his truck and join the others for the journey to Baton Rouge. She made him a thick po'boy sandwich filled with oysters, shrimp, sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and her sauce piquant.

"You ain't made me a sandwich like this for a while, Catherine," he
^-
told her.
"You ain't gone off to do decent work for a while, Jack Landry," she replied. He shook his head and shifted his guilty eyes away a moment. They were parting on the gallery. I was just inside behind the screen door. I hated it when they argued, and I hoped if I remained inconspicuous, they might be gentle with each other.
"Sure you're going to be all right without me, woman?" he asked her.
"Should be. I've had plenty of practice," she replied. Mama could be hard as stone when she felt the need to be.
"You don't let up on me," he complained. "I'm going off, won't see you for weeks. Cut me some slack, woman. Give me a chance to gulp some air before you push my head back underwater, hear?"
"I hear," she said, a tiny smile on her lips. Her eyes twinkled. His whining amused her. I don't know why he tried to put on false faces. Mama could read the truth through a mile-high pile of dead Spanish moss, but Daddy, especially, was a windowpane.
"Well," he said, sliding his boot over the gallery floor, "well . . ." He looked at me and then he leaned forward and pecked Mama's cheek like a chicken. "You take care. And you, Gabriel, you spend more time with your mama than with them animals, hear?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Don't worry about me, Jack. Just don't drop the potato this time," she warned him.
"Aaa, what am I standing around here for? I got to go." He hurried off and got into the truck, waving once as he turned out of our yard and onto the road. I stood at Mama's side and waved after him.
"It seems unfair he has to go so far to find work, Mama."
"He don't find it. He was just lucky it came looking for him. If he was an ambitious man, he'd make his work for himself here, like most others do. But whoever whipped up the gumbo called Jack Landry left that ingredient out," she complained. "Let's go see if we can find a cool spot in the house."
The sun looked like a ball of rust behind the thin veil of a cloud. The cloud wasn't moving. I half expected to discover that the clock had stopped as well, the hands too exhausted with the effort to tell time in this heat.
"That's a good idea, Mama," I said. She stared at me at moment, tilting her head slightly to the right the way she often did when she was a little suspicious about something someone said or did.
"It's been nearly two weeks that you graduated and just about that long that summer came down with a wrath over us, yet you haven't gone off to your swimming hole, Gabriel. How come?"
"I don't know," I said quickly, too quickly. Mama screwed those scrutinizing eyes more tightly on me. "Something scare you out there, something you're not telling me, Gabriel? One of your loving animals didn't try to feast on you, did it?"
"No, Mama." I tried to laugh, but my face wouldn't crack a smile.
"I know you, Gabriel. I know when you've laughed and when you've cried. I know when you're so happy inside, your face becomes a second sun and when you're so sad, the clouds are in your eyes. I nursed and diapered you, fed you and cleaned your bottom. Don't keep no secret locked from me, honey. I got the keys and will find it one day anyway."
"I'm fine, Mama. Please," I bel :ed. I hated not being honest. Mama shook her head.
"It'll be only a matter of time," she predicted, but she relented and I was able to get her to talk about other things while we worked on items to sell at our roadside stand.
We had far more than we needed for our tourist booth, but we worked on hats, baskets, and wove blankets to have for sale as soon as summer ended and the tourists started flocking back to the bayou. Days passed, one day indistinguishable from the other, mostly. Every day after a week, Mama looked for the check from Daddy, but none arrived. She mumbled about it under her breath and went on to do other things, but I knew it was eating away at her like termites in a dead tree. She didn't have to say it, but we were dipping deeply into her stash.
And then one-afternoon, just about ten days after Daddy had left, a late-model automobile appeared in our yard and two tall, stout men, one with a thin scar across his chin and the other with what looked like a piece of his right ear missing, came stomping over our gallery to rap hard on the front door. I was in the living room thumbing through a copy of
Life
magazine Mrs. Dancer had given Mama when Mama went to treat her stomach cramps. Mama was in the kitchen and walked quickly to the door. I got up and followed.
"Yes?" she asked.
"You Landry?"
"Yes, we are," Mama said. Instinctively she stepped back and pushed me back too. "What do you want?"
"We want to see your husband, Jack. He been here?"
"No. Jack's in Baton Rouge, working on construction."
"He ain't been here?" the man with the chipped ear demanded.
"I said no," Mama replied. "I'm not in the habit of telling lies."
They both laughed in a way that chilled my blood.
"Married to Jack Landry and you don't tell lies?" the man with the scar said. His thin lips curled into a smile of mockery.
"That's right," Mama snapped. The back of her neck stiffened and she moved forward, all retreat out of her eyes. She fixed them on both men. "Now, what is it you want with my husband?"
"We want him to pay his debts," the other man said. "What debts?"
"Gambling debts. Tell him Spike and Longstreet been here and will be back. Make sure he gets the message. Here's our calling card," he added, and took out a switchblade knife to cut a seam in our screen door. I felt the blood drain from my face. I screamed and Mama gasped, putting her arm around me quickly. The way they stood there glaring in at us made ice water drip down my spine.
"Get off my gallery! Get off my land, hear! I'll call the police. Go on."
They laughed and took their time leaving. We watched them get into their car and drive away, both our hearts pounding.
"Now what trouble has that man brought on our heads?" Mama wailed.
"Maybe we should go to town and tell the police, Mama."
"They won't care. They know your father's reputation. I'll fetch a needle and thread and sew up that screen," she said, "before we get a flock of mosquitoes in here."
We both tried to not talk about the two 'men, but every time we heard a car engine, we looked up fearfully, expectantly, and then sighed and released our held breaths when the car went on past our shack. It was hard enough to fall asleep with the heat and humidity, but now with fear loitering at our door, too, we both tossed and turned and opened our eyes and listened hard whenever we heard any unusual sounds at night, and especially whenever we heard
automobiles.
The two ugly men didn't return, but four days later, while Mama and I were having a salad for lunch, we heard a horn and looked out to see Daddy's truck bouncing over the front yard. He nearly drove it into the house. He took a swig of a jug he had beside him on the front seat and then heaved the jug out the window. He practically fell out of the truck getting out. He stumbled and made his way to the gallery where we stood, both wide-eyed.
"What' cha both standin' there lookin' like ya seen a ghost?" he demanded, stopping short so quickly, he nearly toppled over. It's only me, Jack Landry, home. Ain'tcha glad to death?" he said, and laughed.
"What are you doing back here, Jack, and tanked up with rotgut whiskey, too?" Mama asked, her hands on her hips.
"Work ended faster than I expected," he replied, unable to stop his swaying. He closed his eyes, a silly smile on his lips.
"In other words, you got canned again, right?" Mama asked, wagging her head with anger.
"Let's just say me and the foreman had a disagreement to a point beyond compromise."
"You came to work drunk as a skunk," Mama concluded. "That," Daddy said, waving his long finger in the air like the conductor
^-
of an orchestra, "is a dirty, low-down lie."
"I bet you ain't got a penny in your pocket, neither,"
Mama continued.
"Well . ."
"And you never sent home a dollar, Jack."
"You didn't get nothin' in the mail?" he said, his eyes wide.
Mama shook her head. "When you get to hell, the devil's gonna learn a trick or two."
"Catherine, I swear on a stack of--"
"Don't say it. It's blasphemy," she warned. He gulped and nodded.
"Well, I did put some money in an envelope. Them postal workers stole it, for sure. They open the envelopes with a candle, Gabriel, and then they reseal them with the wax," he said.
"Oh, Daddy," I said, shaking my head.
"Don't you two look like a pair of owls." He started to laugh, but Mama stepped to the side and pointed to the screen door where she had sewn up the slash.
"See that, Jack? Your friends came a-calling and cut up our screen door when they didn't find you here." "Friends?"
"Mr. Spike and Mr. Longstreet."
"Here?" His face turned paper white and he spun around as if they were waiting for him behind a tree. "What'dja tell them?"
"That you were working in Baton Rouge. Of course, I didn't know I was telling a lie."
"When were they here?"
"A few days ago, Jack. What do you owe them?" "Just a little money. I'll straighten it out," he said. "How much is a little, Jack?" she pursued.
"I got no time to talk to you, woman," he said. "I gotta go upstairs and rest from the journey."
He climbed the stairs, pulling himself up and nearly pulling out a rafter at the same time. Then he went into the house and stumbled up the stairs, leaving a cloud of sour whiskey stench behind him.
"I bet his will be the first corpse the worms reject," Mama said, and plopped into her rocking chair. It made me sick to see her so defeated and depressed. I thought it was that and the heat and my own gloom that upset my stomach something awful that night. Mama thought I might be coming down with some sort of summer dysentery. She gave me one of her herbal drinks and told me to go to bed early.
But the next morning I woke up just as nauseous and had to vomit again. Mama was worried, but once I finished throwing up, I suddenly felt better. My headache was gone and my nausea passed.
"I guess your medicine worked, Mama," I told her. She nodded, but she looked thoughtful and unconvinced. I wasn't sick again for nearly a week, but I was continually tired and sluggish, once falling asleep in Mama's rocker.
"This heat," Mama said, thinking that was the cause. I tried to keep cool, wrapped a wet towel around my neck, drank lots of water, but I was still tired all the time.
One afternoon Mama noticed me returning from the outhouse.
"How many times you been to the bathroom today, Gabriel?" she asked.
"A few. Just to piddle, Mama. My stomach's okay." She still stared at me suspiciously.
And then the next morning I woke and had the same nausea. I had to vomit again.
Mama came to me and put a wet towel on my forehead and then she sat on my bed and stared at me. Without speaking, she pulled the blanket back and looked at my breasts.
"Is it sore there?" she asked. I didn't reply. "It is, isn't it?"
"A little."
"You tell me the truth and mighty quickly, Gabriel Landry. Did you miss your time?"
"It's come late before, Mama."
"How late is it, Gabriel?" she probed.
"A few weeks," I admitted.
She was quiet. She looked away and took a deep breath and then she turned to me slowly, her eyes sad but firm. Her lips were pressed together so hard, the color drained from them, but there was a redness in her cheeks and in her neck. She sucked in some air slowly and looked up before she looked at me again. I couldn't remember Mama ever looking at me this sadly.
"How did this happen, Gabriel?" she asked softly. "Who made you pregnant?"
I shook my head, the tears burning beneath my eyelids. "I'm not pregnant, Mama. I'm not."
"Yes, you are, honey. You're as pregnant as pregnant is. They're ain't no half-pregnant. When did this happen? I ain't seen you with no boy here and don't remember you going off except to go. . ." Her eyes widened. "Into the swamp. You been meeting someone, Gabriel?"
"No, Mama."
"It's time for the whole truth, Gabriel. No half sentences."
"Oh, Mama!" I cried and covered my face with my hands. "Mama!"
"What in tarnation's going on here?" Daddy complained. He came to my doorway in his tattered underpants. "A man's trying to get some rest."
"Oh, hush up, Jack. Can't you see something's happened to Gabriel?"
"Huh? Whaaa ." He scrubbed his cheeks with his rough palms and ran his long fingers through his hair. "What happened?"
"Gabriel's pregnant," she said.
"What? When . . . Who . . How did this happen?" he demanded.
"I'm trying to find that out. If you'll just clamp down on that tongue . . ."
My shoulders shook with my sobs. Mama put her hand on my head and petted me.
"There, there, honey. I'll help you, don't worry. What happened?"
"He . ."
"Go on, honey. Just spit it out," Mama said. "Best way to get something bitter and distasteful from your mouth is quick," she assured me.
I took a deep breath and sucked back my sobs. Then I raised my head and took my hands from my face.
"He had his way with me in the canoe, Mama. I couldn't stop him. I tried, but I couldn't."
"That's all right, Gabriel. That's all right,"
"What?" Daddy said, stepping closer. "Who did this? Who had his way? I'll--"
"Hush, Jack. You'll frighten her."
"Well . . . no one's gonna . . ."
"Gabriel, did this happen at your swimming hole?"
"Yes, Mama."
"Who was it, honey, did this to you? Someone we know?" I nodded. Mama took my hand into hers.
"These young bucks, these worthless, good-fornothing . . ." Daddy rattled,
"It was Monsieur Tate," I blurted, and Daddy stopped ranting, his jaw falling open.
"Octavious Tate!"
"Mon Dieu,"
Mama said.
"Octavious Tate done this?" Daddy fumed. He stood there, his eyes widening, his face a magenta color from his rage. Then he frightened both Mama and me by slamming his fist into the wall so hard he bashed in a hole.
"Jack!"
"Gabriel, you get up out of that bed, hear? You get yourself dressed and out of that bed right now," Daddy directed, jabbing his right forefinger at me.
"Jack," Mama cried. "What are you going to do?"
"Just get her dressed. I'm the man of this house. Get her dressed!"
"She's not--"
"It's all right, Mama," I said. "I can get up." I never saw Daddy so full of fury. There was no telling what he would do if he didn't have his way.
"Well, what's he planning to do?" Mama cried. She looked at me. "My poor baby. Why didn't you tell me this all before?"
"It happened right before graduation, Mama. I didn't want to start anything then and . . . I wasn't sure whether or not it was partly my fault."