Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (36 page)

She pushed by me and almost ran to the twins’ room. I

chased her to the stairs and passed Daddy at the front door.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Livvie quit,” I whispered.

“Oh, no!” he said and for the second time in two minutes, I

almost got knocked off my feet by a grown-up. When I got to

the twins’ room, Daddy closed the door in my face. I could hear

Livvie’s angry tears and I wanted to kill my mother for making

her cry like that. She sounded like her heart was breaking. I

pressed my ear to the door and heard almost every word.

“That’s right,” I heard her say.

“Please, don’t . . . ” Daddy said.

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239

“Only if . . . ” she said.

“How much?”

“That’s right,” she replied.

Silence.

The door opened.

“Women!” Daddy said, shaking his head, passing me

unnoticed.

I went into the room and Livvie had my twin sisters’ dresses

standing up on the bed. She must’ve spent hours starching and

ironing every ruffle.

“Ain’t they cute?” Livvie said, smiling at me.

“Yeah.What happened?” I asked.

“Just a little ‘come to Jesus’ meeting with your daddy, that’s

all. Everything is fine. I gone go to the church with y’all and

then we gone have a party for Mr.Tipa to beat the band!”

“But I thought you said that you were quitting.”

“Listen up to me, chile, your momma and your aunt might

be narrow-minded old buckra bigots, but I am the richest house-

keeper and nurse on this Island!”

“Another raise?”

“Yes, ma’am! Ten dollars a week! I make them
pay
for they

sins!”

Twelve

Hank

}

1963

T was a Sunday and Livvie’s day off, two weeks before

Thanksgiving. There was a dance at the CYO club

I down the Island in the church hall and we all wanted

to go—Maggie, Timmy and I. Henry was still too little. We

asked Momma for permission and she answered through her

haze of antidepressants that she guessed so. She practically lived

in her bed, with frequent visits from Dose-’em and Stick-’em.

Maggie had washed her hair and I was covering my pimples

with tiny dabs of makeup, which I was forbidden to wear. Maggie

was meeting Lucius Pettigrew at the dance, her new boyfriend

from Charleston, and she was out of her mind with excitement. I

only hoped somebody would look at me. Maybe ask me to

dance? I loved to dance and I’d dance with almost anybody,

except my brothers, of course.

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Daddy’s

angry words bombed the house. He’d been in a foul mood all

day, grumbling and complaining about everything. Spoiling for

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241

a fight. Maggie and I just looked at each other.We became very

quiet and the next thing we heard was Timmy screaming in ter-

ror from the bathroom down the hall.

“Please, Daddy! Don’t beat me! Please, Daddy!”

I felt like I was going to throw up. I could hear Timmy cry-

ing as the belt cracked across his back. Daddy hit him five times

with all his might and then stormed downstairs. I went to Timmy

right away, Maggie in my trail. I passed the top of the steps and saw

my mother sitting at the bottom, whimpering. She would do noth-

ing about it. I looked at her and she looked away. She was terrified

of Daddy when he was like this. I was too furious to be terrified.

Timmy was slumped over, sitting on the toilet, head in his

hands, crying. His nose was running and his face was flaming

red. I started crying, covering my mouth. Maggie was frozen at

the door.

“Please don’t cry, Timmy,” I said. “Oh, please don’t cry. I’ll

help you.”

“He really hurt me, Susan. It really hurts.”

I lifted the hem of his shirt and his back had wide welts all

over it, rising in blisters.

“Maggie, go get some ice,” I said.

Speechless, Maggie quickly went down to the kitchen. I

took a hand towel and soaked it in cold water.

“Take off your shirt,” I told him,“it’s not that bad. If we put

some ice on it, it’ll feel a lot better.”

“I hate his stinking guts.”

I twisted out the towel and as he leaned over the sink I

spread the cool cloth across his bony back. “I hate his stinking

guts too,” I said.

“I’d like to kill him.”

“Me too.Timmy, I swear to God, one of these days we’ll get

even with him.And one of these days we’ll get out of here.” I wet

another cloth and twisted it out.“I know we will.We just have to

stick together and not let Daddy catch us doing anything to

make him mad.” Though that answer didn’t seem right to me.

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Maggie came back with a bowl of ice and a linen towel.

“Come on,Timmy, you can lie down on my bed and we’ll

fix you up,” I said.

We went into my room and Timmy laid himself across

my quilt. I took the towel and wrapped some cubes in it and

then decided to make ice water and soak the towels in the bowl.

Maggie brought some water in the bathroom glass. Timmy

began to cry again, this time quietly, hopelessly.

“I love you,Timmy,” Maggie said.

“I love you too, Timmy,” I said. “It doesn’t matter, Timmy,

we’ll take care of you.” And we wrung out the towels again in

the ice water and spread them on his back.

“Why doesn’t Momma stop him?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I guess she figures that if she gets

involved, it’ll be worse.”

“Get down here, all of you!” It was Daddy screaming from

the bottom of the stairs. Quickly,Timmy jumped up and dried

his eyes. Maggie and I just looked at each other but we knew

we had to be quick or there could be more trouble. Daddy was

standing alone on the porch, waiting for us, holding three empty

brown grocery bags.

“So, your mother tells me she gave y’all permission to go

out tonight. Is that true?”

“Yes, sir,” we all answered together.

“Pardon me! I thought I was the head of this house!”

We said nothing. I wisely looked at the floor. Timmy

cleared his throat.

“Did you have something to say about that, Mr. Timmy?

Would you like the belt again?”

“No, Daddy, no. I was just clearing my throat. Honest.

You’re the head of the house, Daddy.We all know that.”

Thick silence—like low pressure before a storm.

“Well, as long as that’s understood for the moment, I’d like

y’all to do something to prove y’all won’t forget.”

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243

“Sure,” I said.

“No problem,” Maggie said.

“I won’t forget, Daddy,”Timmy said.

Daddy looked at Timmy and for a moment I thought he

was going to hit him. But, in spite of the sarcasm and anger in

his voice, he held his temper.

“The yard’s full of nut grass. Do y’all know what nut grass is?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Maggie said.

“Yes, sir, I think I know what it is.”

“Oh! Albert Einstein! Why don’t you tell your sisters what

it is?”

Timmy began to stutter. He hadn’t done that since he was

really little.“It’s that skinny green gr-gr-gr-grass that has a r-r-root

on the b-b-b-bottom of it that looks like a n-n-nut.”

“That’s r-r-r-r-ight, s-s-s-on,” he said. “And here’s a bag for

you, and a bag for you, and a bag for you. When you’ve filled

them all with nut grass, connected to its r-r-r-roots, come see

me and
I’ll
decide who’s going out! Not your mother! Is that

clear?”

We all nodded our heads.

“I can’t
hear
you!” He put his hand to the side of his head

and cupped an ear.

“Yes, sir!” we all said.

“Then get moving, on the double!” he screamed.

They can hear you in Goose Creek, I thought. God, he had

a big mouth.We went down to the yard and began the impossi-

ble job of filling a bag with nut grass. It was five o’clock in the

afternoon and getting chilly.We picked for a while, but it wasn’t

long before we realized it would be dark before we could fill our

bags. Timmy started crying again. Next, Maggie started crying.

Her hopes of meeting Lucius were shattered. I just got madder

and madder.

“He’s a no-good son of a bitch,” I said to Timmy.

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“No shit,” he answered.

“It’s not right,” Maggie said.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” I said. “One of

these days, he’ll get his, and the sooner the better.”

“Why not today?”Timmy said.“Why don’t we just hold him

down and beat the shit out of him? Let him see how it feels!”

“Oh, sure! Daddy weighs about two hundred pounds. He’d

rip off my arm and beat me to a pulp with it,” I said.

“Don’t even talk about that kind of thing.Y’all scare me,”

Maggie said.

“I’ve had it,”Timmy said, “I’d like to kill him. I’ll spend the

next twenty years in a jail. I don’t care! ’Cause you know what?

If I don’t kill him, he’s gonna kill me!”

He might be right, I thought. Daddy seemed capable of any-

thing.Then we heard the screen door slam and stopped talking.

Mr. Horrible came down the steps with a Budweiser in his hand

and a big smirk on his face. He kept cracking the sides of the can.

He looked in Maggie’s bag and then in mine.

“Nice job, Maggie, you make your daddy proud. Hope you

don’t ruin your manicure.”

She said nothing, but fought back a second brimming burst

of angry tears.

“Oh, Susan! What have we here! Half full! Maybe when you

grow up you can get a job picking tomatoes with the migrant

workers! A natural talent!”

It didn’t matter what he said. He was a stranger, an imposter.

There had been a horrible mistake made at the hospital when each

of us was born. It was obvious to me that we’d been switched with

Satan’s children.

“And how’s my sissy boy doing picking weeds?” Daddy

said, leaping from sarcasm to poison.

My stomach lurched and Timmy’s face went from the white

paste of hopelessness to a young warrior. He flew at Daddy’s face

with his fists clenched. Daddy dropped his beer and lost his bal-

ance. He recovered and turned to Timmy.

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245

“Come on, you little queer! If you think you can take your

old man, come on and try. You’re nothing but a girl anyway.”

“You suck, do you know that? You’ve got no right and no

reason to call me that.”

Timmy began to fight for his life. He was not Daddy’s equal.

Daddy threw him to the ground and in one great whirling motion

sat on Timmy’s stomach, pinning his arms.

“No!” I screamed.“No!”

Daddy slapped Timmy hard and then backhanded him, jerk-

ing Timmy’s head from side to side like a rag doll again and again.

Timmy got one arm free from under Daddy’s legs, and he balled

his fist and landed a weak punch in Daddy’s stomach. Maggie

started screaming and screaming, and tried to pull Daddy off.

He swung around and knocked her off her feet. She landed on

the ground with a thud.

I couldn’t bear another minute. I couldn’t stand there and let

him kill my brother. It had to stop. I saw a low branch, dangling

by a thread from a tree. I don’t know where I found the

strength, but I pulled it free from the vines that covered it,

swung it around and cracked Daddy but good. Blood gushed

from the wound in the side of Daddy’s head. He fell sideways to

the ground and just lay there, still. Inanimate. I felt the breeze

cool the heat of my face. I heard my breath as my heart raced. I

dropped the branch.

It took a moment to realize what I had just done. I looked

from Maggie to Timmy. We were all terrified that he was dead,

or, worse, that he wasn’t.

“Oh, my God!” Maggie screamed.

“Shut up and think! Is he breathing?” I said.

Timmy’s lip was split and his shirt was covered in blood. He

rolled over the grass and checked Daddy’s breath.

“He’s alive.”

“What are we gonna do?” Maggie said.

“We’d better get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Where?”Timmy said.

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“Aunt Carol, let’s go to her house,” Maggie said. “If we tell

her and Uncle Louis, maybe they can make it right for us.”

“No way in hell I’m going there,” I said.

“Why not?” Maggie asked.

“Because! That’s why!”

“Then
where,
Miss Genius! Do you realize what Daddy’s

going to do to you when he wakes up?”

Maggie was scared out of her wits. So was I. She was right.

This whole incident was beyond reason. Unless we got help, we

were all as good as dead.We were already in enough trouble.

“Marvin Struthers. I’m going down to Mr. Struthers. He’ll

help.”

“He thinks we’re awful! He won’t help us!”Timmy said.

“Look, he’s the mayor and all this bullshit has got to stop!”

I don’t know where I found the words, but they were true.

We left our father lying on the ground and sprinted toward the

Struthers’s house.