Music of the Swamp (10 page)

These are her first words as she enters the house. “This place stinks!” she says, as if the cotton flowers and the tidy schoolroom had never existed. “This place stinks to high heaven!” she says. Her voice is the wheels of a braking freight train, metal on metal, alarm and dangerous discord. God has denied Fortunata two gifts and Fortunata is here to prove it.

Runt was already defeated. Even Fortunata's voice and angry manner could not have made this more clear. Today of all days it was impossible to deny that the house stunk. It stunk worse than cat piss. It stunk worse than architectural mildew. It stunk as if an ammonia bomb had been exploded in a pine tree.

“This place stinks!” Fortunata said once again for emphasis.

She dropped her plastic briefcase onto a chair where the guiltless cat lay sleeping. The cat shot off the chair and down the cellar stairs, for what reason only God knows. Fortunata
glared at Runt. Runt was responsible for the cat. It was a white-trash cat. This is what Fortunata's look told me.

Runt was glum. He said, “I scrubbed the basement floor.” It was an apology and an admission of guilt.

Fortunata said, “My God, what did you
use
!”

Runt was hidden inside his own head. His eyes peered out of a skull. He looked like a rat in a soup can.

I was frightened of what might happen next. I said to Roy Dale, “Want to go outside?”

I could hear Jeff Davis far away in his room. “Fire!” he called out. “Man the hoses!” Jeff Davis was a madman, but he was also a practical joker. It was never clear to me when he was in psychosis and when he was a comedian. Runt knew, though. Runt, even in terror of Fortunata's wrath, could laugh a sweet and fatherly laugh at this dark joke of a little boy. Runt said, with sincerity, “We are a lucky family.”

Fortunata was having none of it. She said again, “What did you
use
?” Speaking of the ammonia bomb.

Jeff Davis called out, “Bucket brigade!”

Fortunata said, “What did you use to make this house stink?”

Runt said, “A good deal of time and energy.”

I could look into Fortunata Conroy's eyes and know that she hated herself for this scene. I knew that she heard the impossibly harsh, hard metallic grating of her voice. I knew that she
believed it was scenes such as this that gave her this voice, not genetics or even bad luck but only bitterness and a heart too long hardened by fear and rage and outrage. She knew how thoroughly out of line with her vision of marriage and joy and hope this scene fell and also that she was responsible for it. And yet she could not stop. In her mind swamp-elves bolted from cover and crossed a glen and into the trees and cane.

“Gallop the horses! Hook and ladders!” called Jeff Davis from his room.

Fortunata did not hold back on account of me. This open fighting told me that she was white trash to the core. A family of higher quality would have died before allowing me, an outsider, to witness their anger and pain. She said to Runt, “You worthless failure. You stinking drunk. You impotent pig.”

I heard a voice say, “I like the way it smells.”

It was Roy Dale. We were standing together in the room, practically clinging to each other. There were framed pictures of the entire white-trash family on the mantel above the living room space heater. Generations of rednecks in black and white and sepia and even in color. Aunts and uncles and cousins, nephews and nieces, foundlings and mulattoes, Ku Kluxers and gentle parsons. There were rednecks behind the traces of a mule, rednecks beneath false bowers at the senior prom, rednecks at weddings, rednecks in academic regalia at Ole Miss, rednecks in flannel shirts and fake pearls and with stethoscopes
around their necks. There was enough money in professional photography of rednecks to fill in the miserable cellar with dirt and bury Runt and the cat in the bargain.

When Roy Dale said, “I like the way it smells,” all the rest of the people in the room, including myself, looked at him as if he were a man from Mars.

Nothing could stop Fortunata Conroy, or so I believed. She said, “I'll tell you why this house stinks.”

Runt said, “Shut your ugly mouth.”

Fortunata was momentarily stopped. She said, “What did . . .”

Runt said, “Your voice is like eating ground glass.”

Fortunata said, “Don't you dare . . .”

Runt said, “Your breath is like Gary, Indiana.”

Fortunata said, “If you ever . . .”

Runt said, “Your tongue is a snake that swallowed a frog.”

Then Roy Dale's voice again: he said, “It smells like pine trees to me.”

Runt said, “Your gums are raw liver.”

Roy Dale said, “I sincerely like the smell of pine trees.”

Jeff Davis was silent.

Fortunata said, “You low-life drunk.”

Runt said, “You stooge.”

Fortunata said, “You sexless lump, you eunuch.”

Runt said, “You bitch.”

Fortunata said, “Hit me! That's what you want to do! Hit me! It would be a relief!”

Runt said, “You sick slut.”

Fortunata was screaming now. She said, “Get out! Go away! I don't want you near these children! Go to a mental hospital!”

Runt said, “Then I would be near your entire family.”

Jeff Davis remained quiet. Even Jeff Davis could not be in a good mood all the time.

R
UNT WENT
away from the house then. We heard the front screen door slap shut and then the Pinto started up. There was no explosion. Roy Dale led me out of the living room and down a dark hall to the room where he usually slept. Douglas, the child who wanted to be an apple, was sitting on an army cot, crying.

Roy Dale said, “What's your problem?”

Douglas said, “I don't know.”

Roy Dale said, “Me and Sugar want to be alone.”

Douglas said, “Ask me what I want to be when I grow up.”

Roy Dale said, “I'll ask you tomorrow.”

Douglas said, “Ask me now.”

Roy Dale said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Douglas stopped crying. He was about four and had a round moonlike face, streaked with dirt. He said, “Apple.”

This was a joke the two of them seemed to share.

Roy Dale smiled and said, “Okay now, take off.”

Douglas said, “Ask me the next part.”

Roy Dale sighed. He said, “Do you want to be a cowboy?”

Douglas said, “No. Apple.”

Roy Dale said, “A fireman?”

Douglas was giggling now. He said, “Apple.”

Roy Dale said, “Astronaut?”

Douglas said, “Apple. Now say the best part.”

Roy Dale said, “You've got no ambition.”

Douglas said, “Say the next part. Say it right.” Douglas was laughing now, really hard. He lay down on the cot and kicked his feet while he laughed.

Roy Dale said, “You'll always be white trash.”

Even Roy Dale was laughing now. Both of them were cracking up. Douglas laughed so hard he got the hiccups and Roy Dale had to say, “Boo!”

Douglas said, “Okay, okay, I don't want to be an apple any more.” Both of them were tickled but they were holding back.

This was their favorite part. Roy Dale perfectly imitated his mother's metallic voice: “My darling ambitious child!” he mugged. “My sweetest, most normal, most non-white-trash little angel!” he said, in his mother's voice. “What
do
you want to be when you grow up?”

Now both of them were rolling on the army cot. They were pounding each other on the back. They fell on the floor. They
were hysterical. Douglas tried several times and was too tickled to speak. At last he blurted it out: “I want to be a dog!” They hooted, they screamed, they guffawed, they chortled and lost their breath.

And then Douglas dried his eyes and got up off the floor. He was finished with the laughter. Roy Dale watched him, looking for something, I'm not sure what.

Douglas said, “That was a bad one.” He meant the fight between Runt and Fortunata.

Roy Dale said, “Your tongue is the snake that swallowed a frog.”

Douglas did not laugh. He said, “Yeah. Right.” And then went on to bed in another room.

I
T WAS
a good night for me to spend the night away from home. A steady rain had begun to fall and the clouds were dark and as low as the cottonwood trees in the bare grassless yard. Roy Dale and I sat alone in his room and played cards with a greasy deck of Bicycles and listened to the rain in the trees and on the roof and heard it puddle up in the yard. Life in the Conroy family went on and rarely touched the two of us. Supper was never mentioned, and my stomach gnawed on its own emptiness. It felt good to be hungry and to expect no food to relieve the hunger. It was easy to pay the small price of a night's hunger for the sweet isolation that Roy Dale and i were
allowed to share. It frightened me to enjoy these moments with a white-trash child who, until now, I had believed was put upon earth only for my manipulation.

A few times family members stopped by our door and looked in. The twins who spoke in unison stopped for a moment and said nothing. Cloyce and Joyce.

At last Roy Dale said, “You can't come in here.”

In unison they said, “We know that.” They shared their mother's nasality, but in them it was sweet beyond belief.

Roy Dale said, “Sugar is my friend, not yours.”

In one voice they said, “We know that.”

Roy Dale said, “You're not really talking at the same time. Cloyce is talking first and Joyce is talking right behind.”

In perfect duet they said, “You think you are so smart, Mr. Smartypants.” Then they went away.

Roy Dale said, “Just be lucky you don't have sisters.”

Later Dora Ethel, the freak sister who wore makeup and got good grades, stopped at Roy Dale's door. She said, “Hey, Sugar.” Talking to me.

Dora Ethel was very pretty and I was surprised to find myself speechless and in love. I said, “Huh, huh, huh.” She said, “You're cute.” The rain was drumming on the house. It was a tropical rain, a jungle rain. There was a prophet's voice in the rain. It said:
You will grow up to marry a white-trash girl
Water stains were broadening across the ceiling.

Dora Ethel really wanted to speak to Roy Dale, though.

She said, “I'm going out.”

Roy Dale said, “So?”

Dora Ethel said, “So, look, I'm taking Daddy's pistol, okay? Don't tell, all right, but that's where it is.”

Roy Dale said, “Got a date?”

Dora Ethel took the pistol out of her skirt pocket and twirled it on her finger in a funny little sexy way. She said, “Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.” Dora Ethel was by far the cutest white-trash person I had ever seen.

When she was gone I said, “She takes a pistol on a date?”

Roy Dale said, “She goes with Grease Hodges. They shoot rats at the dump.”

I said, “That's what she does on a date?”

Roy Dale said, “When it rains like this, yeah.”

I said, “Shoots rats on a date? That's what she does?”

Roy Dale was not defensive. He said, “Her and Grease. It's something they like to do together.”

I said, “Grease Hodges?”

Roy Dale let it drop. My heart ached with jealousy. I would never be old enough to leave the house beneath an apple-green night sky in a tropical storm, never old enough to love a girl who twirled a pistol on her finger, or to shoot rats at the dump for love. My genes had become infected with Conroy genes. I was terrified of the transformation, and I gloried in it.

No one came in later to tell us good night. One by one the children put themselves to bed. Lights went out. Runt's Pinto
never returned, though Runt did, on foot. Maybe that was the night the Pinto exploded. Or maybe it only stalled out in the deep rainwater in the street. In any case, Runt came home, and there was no more fighting.

Roy Dale took off his clothes and lay on the bed naked, so I got naked too, and together we lay and listened to the drumming insistent rain. The yard outside our window was a lake. Douglas, who usually slept on the army cot, slept somewhere else tonight. We turned off the electric bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the room and lay in the loud sounds of constant tons of falling water. Even Dora Ethel finally came in, dripping wet, and skulked through the house trying to replace Runt's pistol without being seen. The room was not entirely dark. There were streetlights far away, and the light from Red's All Night Bar at the end of the street. I could see Roy Dale place his hand between his legs, and so in a short time I placed my hand between my legs too, and we lay and breathed and did not speak.

It was very late now. So much time passed that I thought Roy Dale might be asleep. He said, “Runt has slept with two-hundred and seventy different women.”

I said, “Slept with them?”

He said, “I found a list of their names.”

I was beginning to catch on to what “slept with them” meant.

I thought about this for a while. I said, “Can I see it?—the list?”

He said, “It's in the back of Runt's closet in a box.”

I said, “My daddy hides a rock-and-roll suit in the back of his closet. It's black and it's got Rock-n-Roll Music spelled out on the back in little glittery things, sequins.”

Roy Dale said, “Do you want a rubber? I stole some from Runt's drawer.” He reached under his mattress and took out a few foil-wrapped packets.

I said, “Naw, thanks. Daddy's got plenty. I blow them up. Put water in them. You know.”

Roy Dale said, “You ought to try jacking off in one sometime. It adds a little something.”

I said, “Hm.”

We were silent again. The sound of the rain was without thunder. It was as constant as the feeling of loss that suddenly I felt inside me, that now I knew had been with me all along, a familiar part of me since the beginning of memory.