Ferris Beach Page 15

  My mother took the wadded-up clothes and carcoat and neatly folded each piece. “Someone will be thrilled to get these,” she said. “Why they’re all so nice and like new. Like this Villager.” She held out a cotton blouse decorated with little tucks and covered buttons—like new but way out of style. “It may be the nicest thing that person owns.”

  The whining radiators of Samuel T. Saxon did not put out nearly enough heat and the large windows shook with every wind. Most of us wore our coats throughout the day, making the classroom a jungle of fake fur. About the only girl in our class who didn’t wear a fur coat was Perry Loomis, who always wore the jacket of whatever boy she was going steady with that week; she wore his jacket and often a thick-linked ID bracelet with his name or initials. She had already gone with Todd Bridger twice, and in between those times she had gone with a boy who was three years older and lived down the street from the Huckses, a boy who, so Misty had heard, smoked a lot of dope and also had “done the deed” too many times to count. That’s who Perry was with when we left for Christmas vacation, a boy named Walter; I had seen his name written on the front of her geography notebook. It didn’t seem to stop the other boys from fawning and waiting, hoping their numbers would come up in a week or two; even Dean Rhodes had asked us about that little blond girl in our class. Most of the girls in our class despised Perry Loomis, but I couldn’t help but envy her; it was almost like having a crush, so taken with this person’s appearance, so much wishing I could claim it as my own. I saw her in the same way I saw Angela, the way I had seen Mo, glittering and shining, rare like a jewel.

  Thirteen

  The Christmas parade of Fulton did not physically amount to much, usually just a few flatbed tobacco trailers that had been decorated by local service clubs with cotton-snow and elves; sometimes high-school girls stood poised, waving the stiff formal wave of beauty queens while the tobacco beds rocked and swayed beneath them. There were usually a few Shriners scattered about on mopeds, their horns and whistles blowing, and of course the high school band was in full force, the majorettes drawing wolf-whistles from the high school boys who sat on parked cars and smoked cigarettes.

  All of this took place year after year, the band and majorettes and floats all wedged between a police car with siren going and Santa bringing up the rear. Santa was usually perched on the back of a Volkswagon convertible made to look like a sleigh, cardboard reindeer strapped to the hood. The parade of 1972 was the same. Mama and I stood in front of a store called Foxy Mama which specialized in Afro wigs. Misty was supposed to meet me there, and I kept scanning the crowd for her orange hair while the band approached. I liked the way the steady beat of the drums seemed to make my heart beat louder and faster. As the parade got closer, I was torn between wanting to grip my mother’s arm in excitement and wanting to walk three blocks down so as not to be identified with her.

  Across the street, I saw a souped-up red GTO, its owner stretched out on the hood with some other boys as he waited for her, his girl, that blond majorette, to march his way. If I turned to the side, I could see my reflection in the window of Foxy Mama, my hair much too curly for the shag haircut I had gotten. I willed my hair to look like Perry Loomis’s, all one length and with flaxen waves like a princess. “What’s so great about Perry anyway?” one of the girls in my class had asked in the bathroom one day. She was one of Ruthie Sands’s friends, one of the few in that group who had not gone to private school when we integrated. “I just don’t see why all the boys like her” She looked around, her light hair filling with electricity as she brushed. Six of us stood there in front of the dark wavy mirrors, the old bathroom cold and smelling of rusty radiator heat and various mixtures of cologne. The graffiti on the walls dated back at least twenty years.

  “I know why,” Misty said, winking at me. Lately, she had been trying her best to attract interest in the two of us and what she called our “knowledge of the world.”

  “Because she’s new,” I said, giving my contribution to the conversation in a way that seemed too well rehearsed yet still carried no impact at all.

  “Nope.” Misty slung her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “It’s because she puts out.” I felt my face redden as the other girls stepped closer. Misty had them, these Ruthie Sands groupies, right where she wanted them. “Todd Bridger has all but done the deed with her.” I knew Misty was quoting what Dean, Mister Maturity, had told her; she was nodding, mouth stretched in a knowing grimace. The words left me feeling odd as if my insides had been twisted, and I forced the same nervous laughter that came from the other girls, so as not to show my embarrassment; or was it envy? I felt as if they had all seen right into my head—seen the way I had strutted across my mind in that fake-fur coat, like maybe I was Ann-Margret on my way to meet Elvis, seen the way I had kissed Todd Bridger or some faceless, nameless boyfriend in the back of the Cape Fear theater, and then taken his hand and pressed it to my chest. I had imagined I was there in the red GTO as that high school senior inched his hand over to the majorette’s thigh; imagined that I looked just like Perry, that I was Perry Loomis.

  “Well, what did he do exactly?” Lisa Burke asked in her high little-girl voice.

  “Use your brain now,” Misty said and crooked her finger to give a hint. “Kate knows.” She patted me on the shoulder and again gave me the look which meant lift your chin. “Kate and I know a lot.”

  When Misty finally got to the parade, she whispered that she was late because she had stopped by Lisa Burke’s house to loan her a copy of Valley of the Dolls. She assured me that I could read it next, and then she launched into her latest discovery, which was that Perry Loomis had to wear turtlenecks a couple of weeks ago because that older boyfriend of hers gave hickeys like mosquito bites. My mother and Mrs. Edith Turner turned and stared at Misty, Mrs. Turner giving Misty the pitying look they had all given her since Mo’s death. Misty smiled sweetly, and then when Mrs. Turner wasn’t looking, shot her the bird. The band was in front of us, and I felt my heart quicken as I watched the majorette and the boy on the GTO exchange looks, then a wink, lips puckered.

  “The downtown has gone to pot,” Mrs. Turner screamed, and pulled her mauve tunic close around her. “I don’t know how on earth they stay in business.” She pointed to the Afro wigs on display, her head shaking back and forth. She had the habit of constantly removing her glasses and letting them swing on the rhinestone-flecked chain around her neck while she cleaned the lenses again and again with a little wadded-up piece of tissue, a nervous habit, I suspected, for she had already confessed to being “scared of the coloreds,” her fear being that “they are taking over the town; give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” My father called Edith Turner the paranoid image of Theresa Poole. Fortunately, the parade was too crowded for Mrs. Poole’s adirondack, and instead she sat up in the manager’s office in Woolworth and looked to the street below.

  “What’s it like at the schoolhouse? Hmmmm? Problems with them?” I realized that she was talking to me. “I said I bet they cause trouble there at the schoolhouse, taking over, using double negatives.” I just stared at her not knowing what to say. “I do declare if your face hasn’t improved. I would swear that place has gotten smaller or paler or something.” She looked at my mother and nodded and then continued without even taking a breath. “And those children from out in the county”—she cleaned her lenses, peeked through and then cleaned them again—“bad. I hear they are so bad. The filthy language. Filth.”

  “It’s bad, the language is awful, just awful,” Misty said, and nudged me right as Todd Bridger and some of the other boys from our class stepped into the crowd on the other side of the street. I kept losing sight of him while Mrs. Turner and my mother discussed how important it was to line a commode seat with toilet paper before sitting on it. Mrs. Turner said it was especially important at places like the movie theaters where they no longer had a separate bathroom for the colorea.

  “Is she stupid or what?” Misty asked, and then she w
as waving and calling out to Dean, who was on the other side of the street. I just stared straight ahead, concentrating on the huge bare tree limbs and the bright blue sky, and the little stone man down at the end of the block where the parade would circle onto the next street. The crisp wind stung my face and gave me a good excuse to put my gloves against my cheeks. “The language is filthy,” Misty whispered in mimic. “What a stupid old bitch.”

  I saw Perry Loomis like a flash over on the other side of the street, and it was like she was looking right at me. One day I had said hello to her in the hall, and she had looked surprised, as if to ask who did I think I was speaking to her. She had quickly nodded and then hurried past, her books up to her chest. Now I saw her face in and out of the crowd, the boys from my class not far from where she was. I looked past the float with what was supposed to look like the nativity but instead looked like some hippies in a barnyard; I had decided that I would speak to Perry again if I got the chance, even with Misty right there beside me. The high-school drama students who were manning the float had live animals, and now Joseph had thrown down his walking stick and was wrestling a sheep who was butting the chicken wire that enclosed the flatbed trailer.

  Once the animals were under control, and Santa finally passed, the crowd thinned. Children ran through an alley to catch the parade going back the other way. Again I saw Perry, now turning away from the curb and walking toward the corner. She was wearing a light-blue carcoat that for the world looked like the one I had outgrown, and she had a little baby propped up on her hip like a grocery bag. I had once overheard Todd Bridger say that Perry’s mama was never at home and they could do as they pleased as long as Perry cooked supper and changed her little brother’s diaper. I lifted my hand when I thought she was looking but instead I got the same blank stare she had given me in the hall that day. Todd and some of the other boys were standing around her, but she seemed uninterested as she shifted the child from hip to hip, turning to smile as if she were paying attention to what they were saying, though she looked as if her thoughts were miles and miles away. It hardly seemed fair that anyone should be so pretty, with such thick wavy hair and large dark eyes.

  It was a relief for Christmas to come and go. Misty spent most of the days comparing that year to the one before, remembering the night Buddy was born, what her mother had baked and bought and said and sung. “Don’t you remember that night Buddy was born?” she said so many times. “The way we danced around in the street? in the middle of the night? You remember how Mama said, ‘Maybe Baby Well Allright That’ll Be the Day’?” And then nine times out often, she would start to cry, shoulders shaking as she leaned towards me. It was warmer than usual that Christmas and rained so much that the families who usually went all out with lights and decorations confined their efforts to the insides of their houses. “Thank God, they’re not stringing their lights this year,” Mama said, and pointed to the neighborhood behind us, Merle Hucks’s house dark. “There would be an electrical fire for sure.” And though Angela had said that she might make it for the holidays, she never did.

  Not long after we returned to school, I got my chance to talk to Perry. I had gotten permission to leave gym class to go to the bathroom, and there she was, sitting up on the old radiator with her hands cupping her chin as she rested against the large window sill. The light-blue carcoat was draped over her legs. She turned when she heard me come in and then quickly looked back to the schoolyard where a group of guys were shooting marbles under one of the tall elms.

  “Hi,” I said, pausing in front of the mirror to brush my hair. I saw her then turn and study my reflection, her lips in a full pout. She nodded. I hesitated, trying to think of something, anything to say. “You’re not sick, are you?” She shook her head, dabbed one eye with the sleeve of her coat, and then turned back to the window.

  “I used to have a coat like that,” I offered, hoping for a bit more conversation. I turned from the mirror and waited to see if she would respond.

  “You mean you used to have this one.” She shook the sleeve all bunched up in her tiny hand. Somehow I was not prepared for the twang of her voice, the rusty flatness that went against every smooth line of her face. The sound was coarse and grainy. “I don’t care,” she persisted, her eyes as hard and cold as creek pebbles. “You can have it back if you want it. It’s got a rip in the lining. The pockets hadn’t even been cleaned out; I found all kinds of little notes.” She paused and then laughed a forced laugh. “Take it if you want it.” She hopped down and stepped closer to me, the coat held out in front of her. I felt like I was in the bottom of a well, like when I used to wear my earplugs. The image of myself in the white fake fur was ugly and garish; I was ugly and garish, and I was prepared to hear her say it.

  “I don’t want it,” I whispered. If Misty had been there, she would have been forcing my head up. “I’m sorry, really.” I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know, didn’t think, but I knew if I said another word I’d start crying. I looked back at her, tried to show in my expression that I hadn’t meant to hurt her. She returned my stare, her eyes lingering just a second longer on my left cheek, and I waited for what was bound to come, waited for the lengthy, flattened insult.

  “Who needs a stupid new coat?” she said and turned away. “All of y’all come in here like a fashion show.” She flipped one hand out to the side and twisted her small body in mocked exaggeration of a model pose. “And I’ve heard the things that fat friend of yours has said about me. I ain’t deaf, you know, but it seems I can’t do nothing about it.” I froze, waiting for more, still stunned that she had concocted her y’all to include me. I was one of them; I was one of the enemy and she had not even taken her best shot at me. She sighed and went back to the radiator, hopped up and pulled her short corduroy skirt down as far as she could.

  “I’m sorry” I said. She shrugged without looking from the window, and I backed out of the bathroom as quietly as I could. I was back in the gym, feeling the vibrations of the basketballs bouncing up and down the old scuffed-up floor, when I realized that I had not even used the bathroom. And when the bell rang, I lingered, looking out the gymnasium door to where Perry stood on the curb in front of the school until she climbed into an old beat-up van and rode away. The van, blue with all kinds of spray-painted graffiti, was easily recognized; I had seen it parked at the Huckses’ house from time to time. The gym was almost empty when I heard Misty’s loud, boisterous voice calling for me to come on, we were going to be late for English. I ain’t deaf you know. We were doing the first act of The Miracle Worker, and I had Misty’s old granny glasses safely tucked away in my locker.

  Slowly the leaves returned, green buds that soon opened like fans to camouflage the stone man so well that only those familiar with him would be able to trace his figure there against the sky. With spring, we received news that E. A. Poe High was close enough to completion that we would definitely go there in the fall; as a result, Samuel T. Saxon would finally be torn down. They would begin as soon as school got out, slowly dismantling the ancient mortar and brick, the thick wavy windows and stone sidewalks. They would bulldoze the yard, turning up lost erasers and marbles and pennies and burying them beneath the yellow dust.

  Fourteen

  Late that spring I went to a tea at Mrs. Poole’s house. Misty and I were still members of Children of the Confederacy, and so several times a year we had to go sit and eat cookies with seven other girls who also had at least one ancestor who had fought for the Confederacy. My mother didn’t see much merit to this club, favoring of course the Revolutionary War, but still she liked the idea of me participating. Several years before, Mo Rhodes who thought the idea of it all was stupid, had asked Misty, “Are you sure you want to be in this kind of club?” I had wished that just once my mother would give me the option. But now there was no one to question our membership, and Misty’s countdown was nearing its end; in only two months it will be a year since Mama left home. Sally Jean was trying her best to mark everything by t
he Liberace sighting or by her wedding day, but until that first year ended, there was no other way for Misty to mark time.

  Mrs. Poole had volunteered to have a joint meeting of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, of which she was the long-running president, and the Children of the Confederacy. At her insistence, each child was supposed to present a project which in some way or another reflected respect and honor of the Confederacy. Certainly none of us took this club as seriously as Mrs. Poole did. I knew when she clinked a long scerling spoon on her iced tea goblet that we were in for an afternoon which could only be equaled by a church retreat or a tour of the local funeral home.

  Sterling against crystal and the room went silent. All the women, my mother included, were used to this; you could tell by the way they stared into the swirled pattern of Mrs. Poole’s hospital green wall-to-wall carpet. “She was the first in town to have wall-to-wall,” I had heard my mother say several times. Now the green nubs were worn down by herd after herd of tea-takers.