Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (38 page)

he was nearly run off the road into the marsh coming home late

from work. He seemed to be coming home later and later, but

that was of no concern to us.When he wasn’t around, our home

was almost a normal home. At least we felt the antics of Sophie

and Momma were tolerable.

Unafraid and determined, he returned to work. Two days

later, someone fired gunshots from the beach through our front

windows in the middle of the night. By the grace of God, we

were all asleep or someone could’ve easily been killed. The

morning after that, Daddy tried to reassure us by saying that if

they had really intended to kill somebody, they would’ve fired the

shots at suppertime. That opinion did little to calm Momma’s

nerves and, as usual, she went to bed, leaving us to care for Sophie

and the twins and leaving Livvie to plan our Thanksgiving meal.

That Friday morning President Kennedy was assassinated in

Texas. Sister Angela, my history teacher, was called out of our

class by Father O’Brien.When she returned she was crying.

“The president has been shot,” she said.

The janitor rolled in a television and the sixth and seventh

graders came in the room to watch the news with us. Then an

announcement came over the public-address system for us to

pack our things for the day and report to chapel. The whole

student body filed in the little church and Father O’Brien led a

special Mass for our slain president and his family and for the sins

of the world.After that, school was called off for the day.We were

put on buses and taken home.

We rode in silence, Miss Fanny leading us in the rosary and

for once, we all prayed with her.There was no laughing, teasing

or cutting of any kind of fool.We were children who could no

longer believe that good always triumphed over evil. Sometimes

evil won.

Livvie was in the kitchen when we came in. Her eyes were red

and I could see that she’d been crying too. Momma and Grandma

Sophie were in bed, overcome with grief. It was a terrible day.The

254

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

only excitement came from the newspapers and the evening news

as we all tried to understand why someone would want to kill our

president.We decided it was the Communists.

I heard Uncle Louis and Daddy that night discussing the

Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.They were sit-

ting in the kitchen when the lawman of the Island arrived. Fat

Albert’s car pulled up in our backyard. I hemmed and hawed,

wiping the counters down over and over, hanging around to try

to find out why he was there, but no such luck.

“Go see if your momma wants anything, Susan,” Daddy said.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

I waited until Fat Albert’s patrol car left and went back to

the kitchen to make Momma some hot tea. Daddy and Uncle

Louis looked up at me and stopped talking.

“She wants hot tea. I’ll be out of here in a moment.”

They looked at each other and then at me.

“Are we in trouble?” I said.

“No, Albert just wanted to warn me again about my build-

ing project, that’s all. He’s afraid that there might be more trou-

ble, with the president being shot and all,” Daddy said. “He was

just here out of friendly concern.”

I knew Daddy was lying to me about that but I didn’t know

why.

I t wa s t h e day before Thanksgiving, and we had a half-day of

school. At Livvie’s urging, Maggie and I planned to go window-

shopping on King Street in Charleston. She said we needed to

have some fun.We appreciated time off from the “slice-and-dice

club” that preceded an elaborate holiday meal.

Ever since the incident with Timmy, and the death of the

president, Livvie had been very quiet. It was as though she pre-

ferred to be left alone just to do her work. She had barely spo-

ken to Daddy since then either, just giving him the hairy eyeball

if he passed her.

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

255

In any case, Maggie and I looked forward to a day of no

chores. I took the bus from Mount Pleasant over to the city and

met her. We had no homework because of the holiday, so we

were able to enjoy the walk without our usual load of books.We

passed by all the windows on King Street, pretending to buy

whatever we wanted with imaginary money. It was great fun.

Maggie had a wonderful innate sense about fashion. She began

to choose things for me, and after the first dozen or so dresses

she pointed out, I began to see why certain things would flatter

my telephone pole figure and others wouldn’t.

“Accentuate what you’ve got going for yourself,” she said.

“See that blue sweater? It’s the same color as your eyes.”

“I know you’re right. God, I wish we had some money and

could go into a store and buy something.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna start baby-sitting more. You should do

that too. I’ve got fifty-seven dollars in my Band-Aid box.”

“Shoot! You’re rich! Let’s spend it!” I was thrilled.

“I didn’t bring it with me for exactly that reason. I’m gonna

save up to one hundred and then spend half.”

“You’re so damn practical, Maggie.”

“Susan, please! That mouth of yours!”

“Forget my mouth, will ya? You’re right! I should start baby-

sitting! I’m old enough!”

“Listen to your big sister, sweet pea. If you’re old enough to

knock the daylights out of Daddy, you’d have no problem han-

dling a bunch of toddlers.”

We started laughing. It was such a relief to laugh. The first

few chortles sounded rusty, but then we got on key.

“Hey, you want to go get an ice-cream cone?”

We had a couple of dollars and decided to go to Woolworth’s

lunch counter and give ourselves a small treat. We pushed open

the large glass doors and right in front of us was a huge display of

hundreds of boxes of Whitman’s Samplers. We stopped in our

tracks.

256

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

“What do you think?” I asked. “Should we buy a box and

eat the whole thing ourselves?”

“Susan Hamilton, we’d be sick as dogs. Hey, you know what?”

“What?”

“We should buy a box for Livvie to have for her Thanksgiv-

ing.”

“Boy! She’d love that! Maybe that’ll cheer her up. How

much are they?”

We looked at the price stickers. The large box was seven

dollars and the small box was three dollars. We calculated that

we could buy her the large box, if we skipped the ice cream and

used our bus fare.We’d have to walk to Daddy’s office down on

Broad Street and ask for a ride home with him. No doubt it

would aggravate him if we showed up, but we decided it would

be worth it, given all that Livvie had done for us.

“This was a great idea,” I said to Maggie, leaving the store.

“Thanks,” she said. “I guarantee you this will snap Livvie

out of that mood of hers. I mean, what if she got so sick of

the craziness in our family that she quit? What would happen

to us?”

“Don’t even think it.”

We made our way down the street, passing the dozens of small

antique stores, the Riviera movie theater and the boarded-up,

vacant buildings.We reached the corner of King and Broad Streets

and turned left to reach Daddy’s office.

“You know,” Maggie said, “he hasn’t hardly spoken a word

to us since the fight. We didn’t call him or anything, Susan. He

might not even be there. Then what would we do? We don’t

have bus fare!”

“Stop worrying. If he’s not there we can hitchhike home.”

“One of these days you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Seriously, we can call Aunt Carol. She’ll come get us.”

“I don’t know.”

We opened the door to Daddy’s office and began to climb

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

257

the stairs, quietly, listening for his voice. His secretary wasn’t at

her desk. The door to his office was closed. Maggie knocked.

There was some shuffling and then we heard Daddy shout.“We

don’t want any!”

“Daddy? It’s us. Maggie and me,” I said.

“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch! What the hell do you want?”

“We need a ride home.”

It was very strange that he didn’t open the door. I think we

knew, big shots that we were, that he and his little secretary,

Cheryl Stikes, were in there fooling around. But we didn’t have

the nerve to turn the handle to find out.We’d had enough trou-

ble lately. So we waited and listened to the whispering and the

shuffling. Sounded like they were getting dressed as shoes clumped

the floor and zippers zipped.We’d caught him red-handed. Finally,

we heard him coming to the door.

We figured he’d just go ahead and kill us when he opened

the door. He was surprisingly nice. He just asked,“Okay.What’s

the problem?”

He looked at us with no guilt on his face. Cheryl stood

behind him, running her hand through her hair, trying to

restore order to her nasty teased hair.

“We need a ride home,” I said.“When are you coming home?”

“I have to work late. Gotta go back out to the country to

secure the equipment for the night. Could be eight, nine o’clock

before I get free. I can’t take you out there with me, it’s not safe

right now.”

“Right. Shoot. Now what?” Maggie said.

“Daddy, will you lend us the money to take the bus?” I asked

as sweetly as I could under the circumstances.

“Sure.” He opened his wallet and gave us each ten dollars.

“You think we’ll keep our mouths shut, don’t you?” I couldn’t

help it, it just flew off my tongue like a plane leaving an aircraft

carrier.Ten dollars was a stunning amount of money.

“Susan! Shut up!” Maggie said.

258

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

“I know my girls are mature enough to understand that

some things are better left unsaid, that’s all.”

I took the ten dollars and stuffed it in my pocket and gave

Daddy the worst look of hate I’d ever given anybody.

“Hey, Cheryl!” I said.

She looked up from Daddy’s desk, where she was now mak-

ing herself busy stacking papers. She had this fake innocent

smile that made me want to puke.

“Why don’t you sit on this and spin!” I gave her the finger,

turned on my heels and ran down the stairs to the street. I heard

Maggie’s feet behind me, and Daddy’s burst of laughter, boom-

ing laughter when there should have been shame.

“God almighty, Susan!” Maggie gasped.“Have you lost your

mind?”

“What does he care? He’s laughing like a damn idiot!”

“You’re right, but he’s crazy and you never know when he’ll

turn on us.”

“He’s done with us,” I said and it was true.

We waited for the bus as the weather turned raw and damp.

Winter was coming, a Lowcountry winter. We got on the bus

and rarely spoke the whole way home, over one and a half hours.

Even though there was a change in the law, Maggie and I sat

in the front of the slow, rattling bus and all the colored people

sat in the back. This embarrassed me. These were the people

who had given the world the woman who cherished us. I wanted

to tell them that the box of chocolates we carried was for

Livvie. Instead I stared out the window and thought about how

much I hated my father. I swore to myself that I’d never have a

husband like him, if I ever got one.

Finally, the bus stopped at our corner. Dr. Duggan’s car was

in the driveway.We walked through our backyard to the house.

“Dose-’em’s car,” Maggie remarked.

“Yup. Big shock.”

“Maybe Daddy wasn’t really doing anything,” she said sud-

denly.

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

259

“Maggie, you know I love you, don’t you?” I said, feeling older.

“Of course I do.”

“Maggie, I’ll bet that lots of families have screwed-up parents

like we do.”

“Probably, but that doesn’t make me feel better.”

I put my arm around her shoulder. It was cold enough now

for our breath to blow frost.

“No, I guess not,” I said. “But look on the bright side. In

three years you’ll be in college, and I’ll be out of here in four.

We need to plan our escape, and make sure nothing happens to

mess it up. For my part, I plan to study my butt off and pray to

skip my senior year. Then we can share a dorm room at some

learned institution and you can tell me what to do all the time.”

In the pale light of early night I could see her smile. “Let’s

go inside. It’s cold.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

The golden light of the kitchen shone through the windows.

We climbed the steps as coconspirators. We would say nothing

about what happened at Daddy’s office. Our faces would reveal

nothing.There was no reason to ruin everyone’s holiday and no

reason to give Livvie another reason to dislike Big Hank. We

opened the door and faced Livvie. Henry was at the table with

Timmy, both of them sitting there staring at the sugar bowl

again.The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Get on in ’eah.” She closed the door behind us. “It’s y’all’s

grandmomma. She done had sheself a stroke not ten minutes