Mississippi Sissy (12 page)

We parted and my father opened the car door to retrieve the small sack of groceries he had been asked to bring home. My mother put them away in the kitchen once we were inside. She looked in on Kim and Karole as I watched my father carefully remove his white plastic neck brace and put it on the kitchen table. It was much hotter inside the house than in the breeze that was beginning to ease the late-afternoon humidity out back and I longed to feel the cool firm mold of that neck brace against my bare sticky legs again where my father had days earlier let me secretly straddle him. He reached into a box of Frosted Flakes. He pulled out a fistful and crunched them in his mouth, the muscles of his temples flexing as he chewed. No mention was made of our clandestine life. He stood at the backdoor and parted the curtain on the window and watched the Simpson Lady still standing there admiring her gardening skills. He waved her way when she saw him staring at her. “What are you doing?” asked my mother when she came back into the kitchen.

“Just checking to see if she's all right,” said my father, dropping the curtain and rubbing his neck. “She can't seem to get enough of that flower bed. It's like she's afraid to go inside her own house anymore after all that's happened. That flower bed does seem to make her feel better.”

“You can't seem to get enough of her, as if she's
your
flower bed,” said my mother. “You're always stealing a look at her. Don't think I don't notice. I
see you.
”

“ ‘Thou shalt not steal,' ” I said, a little something I had picked up sitting on that Baptist pew each Sunday down the hill.

“What's that supposed to mean?” my father brusquely asked my mother, ignoring my comment and keeping up the conversation they each considered a private one because I was still too young in their eyes to understand the implications of such language. Dumb adults. Sissies always understand. “Sounds like you're trying to accuse me of something,” he said, keeping at her and, out of the corner of his eye, watching me start to push his brace about the table, careful not to let it touch the two pieces of black duct tape that my mother had used on her teeth and stuck there on the tabletop on her way to Kim and Karole. “Come right out and say it if you're going to accuse me of something. Don't get all Fancy Nancy with me,” he said, using the nickname he employed for her when a fight could easily ensue.

“No accusations. Only, appropriately enough,
observations,”
said my mother, always glad to show off her smarts in these moments. She was, as she too often reminded him, the salutatorian of their senior class back in Harperville. She waited for his next remark, prodding, she hoped, some vulgarities to fly about the room and thrill her in ways she could never really understand, only feel. Fancy Nancy was readying herself for a long night. Maybe even a lurid one. Risky? Not exactly. “Heightened” is the word she preferred. “Patsy, sometimes everything feels so
heightened,”
she confided to Miz Kirby when they
were taking off their bras and prattling on about things they thought were just as private.

“Honey, you know you're the only one for me,” my father said and turned down her white collar to kiss her on her neck.

“Why did you take that brace off?” she asked, pushing him away and turning her collar back up. “You know the doctor said you had to keep the brace on until you went to bed.”

“Why don't we go to bed right now, then?” he asked and went for her again.

“Howard! Not in front of Kevin!” she said.

“Maybe he can learn something,” he said, leering at her and making her stifle her illicit laugh. “My neck's not the only thing that's stiff.”

“Howard!” She shoved him away once more, then—she couldn't help herself—she pulled him toward her again. They kissed passionately, forgetting I was sitting right there. I kept pushing the neck brace about the table, concentrating on trying to make myself cry by using the tears I had kept in reserve from earlier in the day. That would make them pay attention to me. It wasn't working, though. Ever since I had thrown up in the coaches' lounge and watched my father clean it up, I had been unable to cry in his presence. How could I ever again cry in front of him after seeing how perplexed he was by me, how my presence actually kind of frightened him. I bet I frightened him even more now, I was able to figure out, because we shared a secret he did not want me to tell. No matter how hard I tried, the tears would not come. So I decided this was my chance to shuck my Ethel Mertz role and play Lucy for once. I
pretended
to cry in that loud wailing way Lucy could when Ricky got mad at her. That did the trick. It shocked my parents into noticing me. Their lips parted. They pushed away from one another. “Honey, what's wrong?” my mother asked, startled by my outburst.

I cried louder in my Lucy-mode.

“Answer your mama, boy,” said my father.

My mother came and knelt by my side. “Tell us what's wrong, sugar,” she said and stopped me from pushing the brace around the table.

I whimpered. Had I really fooled her? This was a better crying job than Lucille Ball could ever muster. It was in that moment I first thought I might want to be an actor when I grew up. I whimpered a little more. I made sure I looked right at both of my parents before I spoke. “Whose team am I on?” I pointedly asked.

They took their eyes off me and stared at each other. No response from either was forthcoming.

I repeated the question:
“Whose team am I on?”

“We're all on the same team,” said my mother, contradicting her earlier warning to me when she swore me to her side. “Aren't we, Howard?” My father looked like he wasn't so sure about that. He studied me. His face filled up with that perplexed fear he had of me. What answer did I want him to give? he seemed silently to be asking. Was I about to divulge what I promised him I would not? He reached for his neck brace and put it back on. The front doorbell sounded. “Who could that be?” my mother, moaning, wondered aloud. Staring back at us, she went to answer the door, first making sure her collar was pushed up in the exact Malone manner that pleased her so.

“What are you up to?” my father angrily whispered at me. “I could tell you weren't really crying. That's the one tough thing about you. You don't never cry—at least not in front of me no more. You better watch your step, boy.”

“You better watch yours,” I said, surprising us both. Had I just threatened him? I was feeling rather
heightened
myself. My buddy, that Huck Finn hussy across the street, would be proud of me for so effortlessly appropriating her tough-girl attitude. All I needed was one of her mother's old lipstick-stained cigarette butts dangling from my mouth. My father really did not know what to make of me. He
grabbed another fistful of Frosted Flakes and stuffed them in his mouth. I watched his temples move.

My mother, right on cue, entered the kitchen with whorey little Huck and her Dale Robertson-besotted mama, who was still pissed off, still wearing her new sundress. The Coppertone my mother had earlier slathered on her hadn't worked. The woman's shoulders were severely sunburned, which probably made her even more cranky. “Okay. Tell Kevin and Mrs. Sessums what I brought you over to tell them,” Huck's mama sternly told her.

My friend looked down at the linoleum floor and stuck her hands into the pockets of her oversized jeans. “I'm sorry I got you in trouble, Kevin,” she said. “It was all my fault. I'm sorry, Miz Sessums. I promise not to make Kevin do dirty thangs ever agin.”

“Good girl,” said her mama, who explained that her daughter had confessed to our “escapades in the dugout,” as she had described our little adventure, and told my mother she would fill her in on the disquieting details later. “How's your neck, Howard?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. “Coming along.”

“Glad to hear it,” said the woman. “Now,
you
come along,” she said to her daughter, and grabbed her by her shoulder as they headed back home. My bad-ass buddy began to whistle—quite deliberately—the theme to
Captain Kangaroo
as she looked back over her shoulder at me. My father puckered up himself and joined in the tune.

My mother came back into the kitchen after seeing the two of them out. “What's going on?” my father wanted to know, halting his whistle when he lost track of how the theme ended. “What was that all about?”

I stared up at my mother, my eyes pleading with her not to tell on me, my plans suddenly going awry with the arrival of our neighbors. “Oh, Kevin. Your daddy's not going to spank you,” my mother said. “Forget about that Big Black Belt.” She wrapped an arm around my father. “Everything considered, he'll probably be proud of you. Let
me tell him. You'll see.” She turned to help my father fasten his neck brace. “Kevin and that girl were caught playing doctor or whatever back in one of those old Baptist softball dugouts behind her house,” she said. “They were very naughty as far as we can tell. But
boys will be boys,
right, Howard?”

My father scowled at me before breaking out in exaggerated laughter. “Way to go, Kevinator! Maybe there's hope for you yet!” My mother joined in his laughter, which led them to kiss again for a very long time, careful not to muss the stiff white collars around each other's necks. Punishment I could have dealt with, but I wasn't expecting to get laughed at and then completely ignored. I realized in that moment I was on neither of their teams. They would always be on one and I would be on another.

Someone knocked at the backdoor. We all jumped at the sound. Had Huck and her mama forgotten something? My mother gathered herself, her head spinning in the way only my father could make it spin. He reached over and wiped a bit of his spittle from her lip. My mother opened the backdoor and there stood the Simpson Lady holding Miz Kirby's
Gypsy
cast album.

“I'm sorry to bother y'all,” she said, “but I found this. Think it belongs to you,” she said as she bent down to hand the album to me. “I thought I saw you playing around my hedge earlier and was curious when I saw something stuck into it. Does this belong to you, little man?” she asked. My mother, blushing, took the album from her and thanked her for returning it. That did it. I had had enough. Things were spinning out of control. “Dare I?” I kept hearing my mother's voice echo inside my head. “Dare I?” “Dare I?” I ran to my parents' bedroom. I grabbed the frizzy wig from under their bed and plopped it on my head. I dragged the toga behind me and headed for the kitchen. When I got back, I grabbed the duct tape from the table and stuck it on my own two front teeth and began to sing—in my sissiest mode—all the words I could remember from “Together, Wherever
We Go.” Out back, Coco barked. Karole, waking up from her nap, began to cry. Kim came toddling in. The three adults didn't know what to make of me. Perplexed fear resurfaced on my father's face. The Simpson Lady looked embarrassed for us all. Defeat darkened my mother's blue eyes. Kim picked his nose.

What transpired the rest of that night is rather a blur. As clear as the day leading up to it has always been in my memory, the night itself sort of floats in front of my face, just out of reach. I feel like the Simpson Lady, who knew someone was at her window but could not see them, who remained scared to know too much. This I do know: I know that a battle erupted as soon as the Simpson Lady bid us farewell and my father demanded to know where I had gotten that costume and why I was singing that song and what “goddamn nonsense” was going on. My mother confessed about her plans to perform at the charity event and he forebade her to do it. Forebade her. Frosted Flakes were all we had for dinner that night. I was told to take Kim and Karole outside to play with Coco by the light of the back porch. Whatever frivolity was, the opposite of it was taking place now inside my house. “Coaches' wives are like preachers' wives. They have a
place
in the goddamn community and it's not for goddamn sure showin' off all snaggle-toothed and parading their snatches around on stage!” My father shouted loud enough for Coco to bark in the way she did only at the sound of his voice, the excited, incessant percussive yaps of her lower register set off by quick little growls. The Simpson Lady's son came over, ostensibly to play with us, but obviously trying to ferret out some information for his mother. I didn't mind. He was especially beautiful by the light of that lone bare bulb by the backdoor that barely illuminated our yard. “You gonna sing in the choir?” I asked him. He seemed shocked by the question. My father, controlling himself, called us back inside. Kim and Karole were grateful to fall asleep but gratefulness was the last thing on my busy mind. I had long ago given up on Captain Hook offering me safe harbor
with a bunch of like-minded boys. I knew I had to lie there on my bed biding my time before I could someday escape. And what about that other secret? It was still intact. I had missed my chance to tell it. Would I tell it yet? “It's
tellin
' that makes it bad,” the Huck Finn hussy had theorized about our own now detonated secret. Had she been right? Deep in the night I heard my mother crying behind a closed bedroom door because something had been forbidden. The sound of her utter sadness was seeping too deeply into me. My father's stubborn, angry voice did nothing to block it out. I searched under my mattress for the Huck Finn hussy's dirty Q-Tip and stuck it into my ears, pretending to clean the sound away. It did not work. I stood at the window. My face found the moon's light. I mimed taking off a brassiere. I stripped my bed of its sheet and fashioned a toga about my own body. A kind of collar resulted and I turned it up like Dorothy Malone. My mother continued to cry, but I forced myself to listen for the memory of her soprano instead perfectly hitting its earlier happy notes. I lip-synched to that remembered sound, not to the one flooding the house at that moment, and tried to come up with the words from the first song she had rehearsed that day with Miz Kirby, “Comedy Tonight.” The only lyric that came to mind was, “Something
familiar.
Something
familiar.
Something
familiar.”
It was a refrain that no doubt haunted the Simpson Lady who seemed to sense she might know who the Peeping Tom was, just like it was haunting me. It haunts me still. “Something
familiar.
Something
familiar.”
I lip-synched those words over and over. I paraded my snatch around. I waited until my mother's tears had finally ceased, until even the furtive whispers that followed had faded, until the house around me was as quiet as my ever-moving mouth.