Those Across the River

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS LATE August when I went to interview Bessie Wilcox at the Sunny Rest nursing home just outside the mill town. I hated the euphemistic names they hung on nursing homes, as if old folks were small children who didn’t know what was in store for them. If I opened one I’d call it Yelling All Night Manor or Chafing Acres. Granted, I might not attract many tenants, but they would be realists.

Sunny Rest, while not as bad as some of the desperately overcrowded and perpetually uric facilities I had seen on Chicago’s South Side, distinguished itself with a kind of hopeless torpor that had also spread to the staff, which on this hot afternoon consisted of a scarecrowish, twitchy white woman with her hair lacquered unbecomingly to her head and a pillow-bosomed colored lady who seemed half-asleep.

I asked them if I might speak to Mrs. Wilcox on the pretext that I was her nephew. They were accommodating enough.

I winked at Mrs. Wilcox, and she nodded from her bed and motioned Dora and me to sit down. The old folks waiting to die in these places would say the Devil was their nephew for the chance to talk to somebody new.

Her blue eyes blinked a lot behind her dirty glasses.

“You ain’t my nephew. I got three livin. Two of em’s in Atlanty and the last one’s in the can. Tell me who you are, though.”

“Frank Nichols. Dottie McComb was my aunt.”

“Oh,” she said. “You here for the money? Cuz I ain’t got none. Or I wouldn’t be here.”

“No, ma’am.”

“That’s good. You’re a good boy. I’d a never let Henry borrow that money if I’d knowed about the boll weevils; lost everything any damn way. Would you reach me some tea?”

She motioned towards a sweating, chipped pitcher on the nightstand and a cup with a blue flower on it.

Dora beat me to her feet and poured the cup full. Bessie took it, and got a lot of it on her chin and down her front when she drank. I saw Dora look around for a towel, but there wasn’t one.

“Mrs. Wilcox, I’m actually here because I’m writing a book about the war, and I was hoping to ask you some questions.”

“What’s she for?” she said, indicating Dora.

“Taking notes.”

“Huh.”

“What do you remember about the States’ War?”

“So you must be Katherine’s.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Prettiest child I ever saw.”

“Thank you.”

“I was just a little girl durin that war. A little barefoot girl.”

“Anything you remember would help.”

“I wish my girls had been pretty like that, but Henry, he wasn’t much to look at. After a pretty man breaks your heart, you’re happy for a plain man. You gonna break this one’s heart?”

“No, ma’am.”

“No, I reckon not,” she said, looking at Dora for the first time. “Reckon she’s gonna break yours.”

“Let’s hope not,” I said.

“Yep. She will. She got them crazy, two-daddy eyes on her.”

Dora bowed her head and wrinkled her mouth, trying not to laugh.

“Mr. Gordeau said you were born in 1854. Is that right?”

“December. Almost a Christmas baby, but my mama prayed on it so I wouldn’t be.”

“Do you remember Lucien Savoyard? Did you ever meet him?”

“Mr. Savoyard? Everybody met him. He was a gentleman, like they don’t make no more. He sat a good horse, all rich in his blue and silver waistcoat, prettiest cloth I ever saw. I remember askin my mama would the angels wear gowns made a that? It was silk. First time I ever saw silk. He let me touch it.”

I looked over at Dora to make sure she was getting this. Her pencil flew.

“You look like your mama in the head. In your long, pretty head. But you got them soft eyes like she did. Like you’d let a lot of bad happen to you afore you’d stand up.”

“I hope you’re wrong.”

“I ain’t. So you’re Katherine’s?”

I nodded.

“Who’s she?” she asked, pointing arthritic fingers at Dora.

“I’m his wife,” she said. “Do you remember the Savoyard Plantation?”

“Course I do. Mama rode me by it on the mule once or twice, and I even got to go in one time. Just before the war. He threw a big Christmas party and opened his house up to all them from Whitbrow and Morgan wanted to come. He had put up these painted angels from France and all these glass icicles that caught the firelight. All the grown-ups were dancin. He danced once with my mama and that was fine, but when he danced with her again, Pappy made us go home. I didn’t want to go. All them candles and ornaments and peppermint candies. The house nigger had oil on his face to make it shine. It was a magic night.”

“Did they have a lot of slaves?” Dora said.

“Lord, yes. Always comin and goin. Always different ones.”

“How did you feel about that?” said Dora.

“They was lucky. They was rich. We didn’t have no slaves. My daddy was a pateroller afore he volunteered.”

“Pateroller?” I said.

“Used to ride the roads lookin for coloreds without a pass from they master.”

“I mean how did you feel about slavery?” Dora said.

I shot her a look, but she shot one back.

“Wasn’t no way to feel about it, that’s just how it was. That was slave days. Now, some of it was done right and some of it was done wrong.”

“Who did it right?” Dora said. “I mean were there actually people who owned other people and did it right?”

“You make me tired,” Mrs. Wilcox said. “I don’t much like you.”

“Shall I leave?”

“No, sugar, you just keep sittin there like the world owes you somethin. And reach me some more sweet tea.”

Dora didn’t move this time, so I did it. Mrs. Wilcox got more on the chin, so I got up and got a towel from the sleepy black woman. When I came back, Dora was walking towards me with pursed lips. She handed me the notebook and pencil.

“She called me a whore. I’ll be in the car.”

“Do you want us to leave?”

“No. She really is a splendid resource. But I might punch her if I stay.”

I kissed her cheek and took the notebook. She strutted out of the Sunny Rest nursing home, giving me a warm look over her shoulder to let me know she was all right. A dazed-looking little bald man in a wheelchair waved a purplish claw at her in farewell, though she didn’t see.

Mrs. Wilcox spoke for another half an hour after Dora left. She sang more songs to the faded glory of the Savoyards and what a shame it was the Yankees won. She told me that when the slaves killed him, the pastor told his congregation to weep like the Israelites wept for Zion.

When she ran out of things to say, Mrs. Wilcox looked at me like she didn’t know who I was, and called for the twitchy white woman, saying I wasn’t her nephew and she wanted me thrown out. I played it cool, assuring the woman that I was, but that my aunt got confused sometimes. She nodded and went over to the old woman, who was thrashing her head back against her pillow.

It was time to go, and then some.

But I didn’t make it out the door.

A very thin, very old man two beds away motioned me over. He had cancer on his face that was hard to look at, and huge spectacles that made his watery, yellowish eyes look like owl’s eyes. He pulled my ear close to his face, but I turned my head so my better ear was closer.

“Don’t you believe them horsefeathers about Savvy-yard,” he said.

“No?” I said.

“No. He’s in hell. And I’m goin soon.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I ran his dogs on runaways afore I seen enough to quit. Then I’se fifteen. Old enough to join the militia. But the things I done. I helped take the skin off ’n one nigger who ran away twice, and stretched his hide between two poles, like a jackrabbit, with his face still on it. Had a wheel to spin the niggers on till they lost they minds. But he didn’t run dogs on his slaves when he hunted. He went out by himself. I saw him once, comin back naked. And they never came back. That place is haunted, young man.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Do you like the banjo?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Reach me my banjo an I’ll play you a song. It’s under the bed.”

I looked under the bed, but there was no banjo. Just the feet of the twitchy white woman getting closer.

“I reckon this is your uncle?” she said, giving me the angry eye.

“Don’t you fuss at him,” the old man said. “This is my nephew. Now, get me my banjo, you witch. You evil witch. I want to play something pretty.”

WHEN I GOT out to the car, I found that Eudora had put the top down. Her white legs were on display and her bare feet were on the dashboard. The smell of nail polish hit me. Her toenails were brick red and she had cotton between her toes.

“If I’m going to be a whore, I should look the part,” she said. “Mind if I dry these out while you drive?”

I threw my head back and laughed.

Jesus Christ, I was in love.