"I didn"t go to the Olympics, Ben. I went to the Olympic trials. Before I die this town will have it that I beat the h.e.l.l out of Joe Louis at Madison Square Garden. The boy who beat me in the trials nearly killed me, Ben. He beat me all over the ring for three rounds. I was blinded by my own blood when the referee stopped the fight. I had come to the limits of my skill as a boxer. The boy that beat me was knocked out cold thirty seconds after the first round began by the best boxer I ever laid my eyes on. That boxer went on to win the Olympic bronze medal, then lose his first five fights as a pro. Athletics is a strange world. You climb to your peak, but often that is not very impressive unless there are very small peaks around you."
"Then why play sports at all?"
"It"s very important, Ben. Sports show you your limits. Sports teach humility. Sooner or later the athlete becomes humble no matter how good he is. But he plays until he has reached as high as he can."
"I play basketball because I have to win a scholarship," Ben announced.
"No, that"s not true," Mr. Dacus disagreed, turning down River Street and walking down the sidewalk beneath the ma.s.sive wind-sculpted water oaks that paralleled the river. "That"s not even close to the truth. You play basketball because you love your father."
"I hate my father," Ben said darkly.
"No, you love him and he loves you. I"ve seen a lot of Marine fathers since I"ve been at the high school, Ben. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, year after year. They"re a tight-a.s.sed lot and your father is as tight-a.s.sed as any of them. They love their families with their hearts and souls and they wage war against them to prove it. All your dad is doing is loving you by trying to live his life over again through you. He makes bad mistakes, but he makes them because he is part of an organization that does not tolerate substandard performance. He just sometimes forgets there"s a difference between a Marine and a son. Did he give you that shiner?"
"Yes, sir. Palmer called him down to the jail and told him I resisted an arrest for drunken driving. He hit me when I came up to the bars to talk to him."
"Your father is the dream of a high school princ.i.p.al or a deputy sheriff. He believes in the inst.i.tution over the individual even when the individual is his own child. That"s why he"s such a good Marine."
"And such a lousy father."
"You"ll come to understand him better when you grow up."
"I"ll never love him, though."
"Sure you will. I told you that you love him right now and I meant it. There"s something profound about boys and their fathers. There"s bad blood, it seems, almost always, and yet there"s this inevitable tenderness that neither of them recognizes when it"s present. But over a lifetime it"s hard to hate the seed that fathered you."
"How did you know to come down to the jail tonight? Was it Sammy?"
"He called me and told me the whole story. He"s really upset. We better call him when we get to my house."
"Your house?"
"Yeah, I want you to spend the night with my wife and me tonight. We can put some ice on your eye, give you a little dinner, and let you get some rest. I"ll go over and talk to your father tomorrow morning. We got to be good friends during basketball season and if he isn"t mad at me for kicking you off the team, I think I can smooth the whole thing over."
"He thinks you were right to kick me off the team."
"I was," Mr. Dacus said simply.
"But he still loved it that I hurt that boy."
"In both cases, he is the perfect Marine."
"I"m cold," Ben said, looking out toward the river.
"Why didn"t you tell me, p.i.s.sant?" Mr. Dacus said. He put his arm around Ben and pulled him close to his body. It was not the hardness of the princ.i.p.al"s body that amazed Ben; it had something to do with the realization that he had never been held this closely and this lovingly by a man. Slowly Ben put his arm around the man"s waist as they turned toward the Dacus home.
Chapter 30.
Ben and Mary Anne waited for Sammy and Emma Lee Givens. They drank huge gla.s.ses of iced tea, sugared and garnished with mint leaves. Mary Anne was lying on the Pawley"s Island rope hammock that Lillian had bought for Bull"s birthday in early February. Ben was sitting on the bannister looking out toward the houses that lined the lawn.
A screendoor slammed shut and a lawnmower started up somewhere down the street. The fires of spring had come to Ravenel in a rush, in a blaze of color and odor, and spring could be tasted everywhere in the bee-emblazoned gardens and the seed-gifted winds. The old part of the town, fiercely antebellum, rested in the stillest slackwater celebration of itself, in the habiliment of azaleas cutting into shadows with a soft-winged blue, or a deepening ruby. This spring was a fire without thrift in the grand literature of the seasons the Meecham family had watched from their verandas. Ben breathed deeply, catching the scent of gardenias, and the river, half honey, half wine.
"G.o.d, this town is beautiful at this time of the year," Ben said.
"What a deep and profound thought, Ben. I bet no one else has ever said that before," Mary Anne said. "You really should try to train yourself to think in original phrases."
"How would you like to digest thirty-two teeth that once were fastened to your gums?"
"That"s better. You ought to thank me for making you more aware of the language."
"I"m so lucky. Other guys have sisters that set them up with dates with gorgeous girls. Me. I got a sister who makes me more aware of the language."
"Do you realize that next year, Ben, you and I will be separated for the first time in our whole lives."
"I hadn"t thought of that," Ben said. "I hadn"t looked at the bright side of leaving home yet."
"You"ll appreciate me one day. After my suicide and the entire literary world is in mourning and after kings and princes hurl their bodies on my casket so intense is their grief, then you"ll appreciate me. Then you"ll regret the vicious way you"ve treated me all your life. But you"re a Philistine, Ben, and I"m an artist. It"s been perfectly obvious to me for years that I must suffer at my family"s hands until I blossom into the greatest writer of the twentieth century."
"You"ll be lucky to blossom into a horse t.u.r.d."
"Your bathroom humor does not amuse me. But no kidding, Ben, I"ve wondered in how many thousands of different ways you"ll miss me next year. My wit, you"ll miss. There"s no question about that. Being raised with the wittiest, most charming woman in America has probably ruined you with other women. Next, you"ll probably miss my genius. A mind like mine only comes along once every couple of generations and I know you"ll look back and think, "I never really appreciated that brilliant sister of mine." "
"Hey, brilliant sister," Ben said, "you going to write me when I"m in college?"
"No, not unless you promise to save every letter I write."
"Why do I have to save them?"
"Because they"ll be collected someday after my death. Then they"ll be published in a small, elegant volume."
"This is after your suicide."
"Precisely. There will be many letters from great poets, novelists, scholars, barons, dukes, and captains of industry. Your letters will be placed at the very end of the book where they will not be obtrusive. Your letters will be of absolutely no literary importance, but they will show that Mary Anne Meecham did love the barbarian members of her family even though they treated her viciously. Mary Anne Meecham"s vast and compa.s.sionate spirit will shine through these letters."
"How shall I act at your funeral?" Ben asked. "Subdued? Ashamed of having treated you viciously? Or should I just be the ol" barbarian I always was?"
"I want there to be no holding back at my funeral. I don"t want there to be any stiff upper lips when it comes to my death. I want there to be real grief. I want blubbering and wailing and loud gnashing of teeth. I want people to kill themselves rather than face a world that does not include Mary Anne Meecham. I want people to wonder aloud about whether it is really worth it to continue without the friendship of this magnificent human being, this G.o.ddess, this genius, this radiant beauty. And I will want an open casket, Ben. Remember that, because I imagine you"ll have the honor of being in charge of the petty details that will go along with my funeral. I want to be buried in a black dress with a strand of pearls around my snow-white neck. I will have no freckles then, since freckles tend to fade as a woman gets older. But the important thing, Ben, is that I want there to be no one in the audience who is not absolutely heartbroken that I have departed this life. If you spot anyone who seems only saddened, throw him out. If you spot anyone who is not wracked by sobbing, then get him the h.e.l.l out of my sight. Can you imagine what an empty, desolate place the world is going to be without Mary Anne Meecham?"
"I don"t know. It sounds kind of nice to me."
Sammy pulled his car into the driveway along the side of the house. Sammy and Emma Lee walked up the front stairs holding hands.
"Hi, Ben and Mary Anne," Emma Lee said.
"I wouldn"t let him hold your hand like that, Emma Lee," Ben said. "I know the boy well and he"s a s.e.xual maniac."
"Don"t listen to my sicko brother, Emma Lee," Mary Anne said. "How are y"all doing tonight?"
"You look nice tonight, Emma Lee," Ben said.
"I"m doing fine tonight, Mary Anne. I guess you"re eaten up with jealousy seeing another woman out with the man you love."
"It"s killing me, Sammy."
"Try not to be a total fool, Samuel," Emma Lee said. "And thank you, Ben."
"Would you and Mary Anne like to go to the movie with us?"
"No, thanks," Mary Anne said.
"C"mon, Mary Anne, let"s go," Ben said.
"No, I have some reading to do."
"She"s almost finished one of the Dead Sea Scrolls and she hates to put it down now that she"s at the good part," Ben explained.
"Why don"t you come, Ben?" Sammy said.
"Naw, I"m going to stay here and torment my sister. I just have a couple of more months to do that."
"You are both more than welcome to accompany Samuel and me to the theater," Emma Lee said in her strangely formal manner. It was incongruous to hear her starched Puritan voice and see her holding hands with Sammy at the same time.
"Not tonight, Emma Lee. Maybe some other time. But before you go, come up to my room and I"ll get you that book I promised you," Mary Anne said, rising from the hammock and walking toward the front door.
When the girls had disappeared from sight, Sammy pointed to his car parked in the driveway.
"See that automobile right there."
"No, where?" Ben joked.
"Right there, Bucky beaver," Sammy said.
"The Jew canoe."
"Yeah. Well in about two hours that car is going to turn into a pa.s.sion pit. I didn"t get a chance to tell you that last night we made out for at least five minutes in her driveway."
"No kidding."
"When you have the right moves and the cool tools, women just melt in your arms. I"m going to try to talk her into parking out at the beach."
"I know a good spot if Junior Palmer isn"t using it tonight."
"You read my mind, son. As soon as the movie is over at the Sea Oat, Mr. Suave is hauling a.s.s out to the beach for a little lock lip."
"It"s supposed to rain tonight."
"The darker, the better."
Emma Lee and Mary Anne came out the front door. Emma Lee walked over to Sammy and shyly took his hand again. Sammy winked at Ben, then turning and saying good-bye, they got into the car and drove to the movie.
After the movie, Sammy turned his car down the dirt road that led to the spot where he and Ben had discovered Junior Palmer and the black woman. The rain had almost stopped now but water dripped in torrents from overhanging trees and he kept his windshield wipers on as he pulled up to a small rise and heard the breakers on the other side of a group of small sand dunes. He switched off the ignition and turned with what he hoped would be taken for a gesture of surety, of casual mastery toward Emma Lee.
"Samuel, I am frightened out here. You did not tell me that you were bringing me out to the jungle."
"There"s nothing to fear. Sammy Wertzberger is here," Sammy said, putting his arm around her shoulder. "Anyway, I"m the only one in this whole county who knows where this spot is. It"s the most romantic place in Ravenel County."
Emma Lee took off her gla.s.ses, laid them on the dashboard, and slid across the seat. Sammy kissed her inexpertly. Their mouths opened and their tongues met. Emma kissed Sammy on the neck, then snuggled against him tightly. Sammy could feel her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against his body. He shifted his weight and pulled her chin up until her eyes were looking into his.
"Do you know I can hardly see without my gla.s.ses, Samuel?" she said.
"Good, that means you don"t have to look at my ugly mug," Sammy answered.
"I think you are very nice looking, Samuel. I was proud to introduce you to my parents the first night we dated."
"You were?"
"Yes. They thought you were a well-behaved gentleman. I had only dated boys at the church to Sunday school affairs."
"Then I knocked you off your feet," Sammy giggled, kissing Emma Lee again.
This time the kisses were softer, more relaxed, less hurried and strained. They were learning how to kiss now, taking their time in the darkness, savoring the taste of another mouth, the shape of other lips. Sammy was amazed how small and diminutively boned Emma Lee was and how clean her brown hair smelled. She made a small moaning sound as Sammy kissed her on the neck. They hugged each other again. Sammy, through his range of vision, could see her white blouse, the opposite door, and her John Romaine purse which lay on the seat almost within his reach. Her cheek against his, Emma Lee kept her eyes closed feeling the soft and hard contours of Sammy"s face. When she opened her eyes, she was staring out the window. A face was staring back at her and she screamed.
The door was opened and a huge hand reached in and dragged Sammy out by the shirt. Sammy"s head hit the side of the car on the way out. A cut opened up above his left eye. When he hit the ground a knee crashed down on his chest and Sammy"s eye focused on the point of a butcher knife a half inch away from his eyeball. The voice of a black man whispered violently, maniacally above him. The voice came hissing out of the butcher knife.
"Run away from here, boy, or I"m gonna cut out your f.u.c.kin" eyes."
The knife came down to a spot on Sammy"s cheek and opened a slight cut that ran down to Sammy"s chin.
"Please, mister, don"t hurt us," Sammy pleaded.
The man jerked Sammy up and ran the dull side of the blade along Sammy"s throat. Then he shoved him away from the car and screamed, "Run, boy, or I"ll cut this girl into small pieces! Run! Run!"
Sammy sprinted down the dirt road calling back to Emma Lee, "I"ll get help, Emma Lee. Do what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wants. I"ll get help in less than a minute. Do what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wants!" He was crying and screaming as he ran. An animal whine of unequivocal desperation and absolute hopelessness rose in his throat as he ran and ran and ran.
The black man made Emma Lee get out of the car. She leaned against the hood of the car, her legs buckling from fear.
"I can"t tell my father I was out here," she said to the man.
The man grabbed her by her hair, jerked her head backwards and stuck the point of the butcher knife just below her eye.
"Take your f.u.c.kin" clothes off or I"m gonna put your f.u.c.kin" eye out."