He was standing at the corner of the house with the bumpy sack of baby kittens,
mean-looking with the oak shadows blowing over him. It didn't seem like I'd walked out on
that porch; it seemed like I was just there. Like my feet were drove in the floor with the
nails that held the boards down, and I couldn't move. So all I could do was be and watch—
story of my life up to then—watch William B. sacking up my cats to throw in the river.
Which for a fact wasn't the worst thing he ever did.
My little brother J.J. was just there too, right beside me, watching our step-daddy
tussle with the sack of cats and smelling the whiskey fumes rolling off of him. I was crying,
but I wasn't crying out loud and I wasn't begging. And I can't say I didn't take some pleasure
in the mama cat clawing William B. when he tried to drop her down inside the sack with her
babies. He was holding her by the skin of the neck and her legs were stuck out stiff till he
let go. Then the whole sack came alive with yowls and meowls, poked out with heads and
feet and living lumps, nothing but the mama cat's white paws sticking out the top, her claws
like rattlesnake fangs hooked into the tops of William B’s long, bony hands.
His pale green eyes stretched wide, he turned red; he had a Pall Mall stuck between
his smoking lips. With his right hand, moving slow, he grabbed the mama cat’s neck, then
with both hands he started squeezing and wringing, and kept it up till her body inside the
brown burlap went slack. The kittens were still bunching on the bottom and crawling up the
sides of the sack, carrying on something awful. The mama cat’s claws were still pinned to
his hands. He pulled the claws out, then let go of the cat, straight down in the sack, then
gathered the top and twisted it and slung it over his shoulder and walked around the back of
the house, headed for the woods and the river.
That was Saturday morning, and Mama'd had to work the eleven-to-seven shift at
Levi's the night before. It was a strange winter day, too hot for January and making up to
rain like it’ll do in South Georgia. Then it would turn off cold.
Me and J.J. were still on the porch when Mama come driving up the dirt lane to the
house. It must have been about 8 o'clock then, because she had to drive nearly thirty miles
to and from work in Valdosta. She wasn't one to stand around and talk after work, or even
go out to eat breakfast, like a lot of the other girls that worked with her. She would head on
home to fix us a bite and half the time wouldn't go to bed till good dark. Maybe she was
afraid for us there by ourselves with William B., but she never said that. She would look
scared sometimes, like she was holding her breath and smiling at the same time, but
generally she'd make up some excuse for him. Looking back, I figure it was her pride. She
couldn't admit she'd picked a nut to marry and try to make over into our daddy. So once she
found she couldn't remake him, she tried to make us see him like she wanted him to be, not
how he was.
"I say let's don't mention the cats," I told J.J. and dried my teary face on my skirt tail.
But he was already out the screen door, bare-footed and bare-chested, by the time she pulled
up under the big water oak out front. The leaves of the oak had just turned rust-colored,
after our first frost at Christmastime, and were now whispering down to the ground.
J.J. was eight and Mama's baby and William B. didn't hate him like he did me. When
J.J. would see Mama driving up from work, he would stomp out and hang his head and grin.
Shy and humble-acting after he'd been picking at me and messing up the house every time I
got it straightened up.
Mama had a wide smile that looked painted on with her red lipstick, a kind of
trademark cause she never could stand bellyaching of no kind. That's how I remember her
best, that red smile. "How's my big boy?" she would say to J.J., getting out of the car and
closing the door.
He would wrap his arms and legs around one of her legs so that she'd have
to drag him along while she walked. He didn't care if she was tired,
had been up all night working. She wore blue jeans and a red shirt
packed in tight. She was stocky and dark with bushy brown hair; she
must have been about forty-five then (William B. had to have
been about ten years younger, which explains a lot).
"Hey, sister," she said to me at the door that morning. "Turn
loose a minute, buddy," she said to J.J., but pulled his pale buzz-
cut head to her body to show she loved him just the same.
He held her around the waist and walked a little behind for her
to get through the screen door. "What y'all doing up this time of
morning and it on a Saturday?"
I could hear the T.V. going in the living room, happy with
cartoon music, so I told her we were up watching cartoons.
I uncrossed my arms and turned to keep her from seeing my eyes
in case they were red from crying.
"Where's you daddy?" she asked--meaning the cat killer.
I didn't answer. J.J. didn't answer. I could feel myself primping up to cry again, so I
walked fast through the pink living room, through the yellow kitchen with its rotting wood
smell and on into the bathroom. I know it's crazy, after me telling J.J. not to mention the
cats, but I wanted her to know without me having to come right out with it. I wanted her to
say just once that William B. was wrong and mean and she wasn't about to put up with him
anymore. Another reason it was so crazy was to me then it seemed like she didn't have any
choice because she had no money to leave on except the little bit she made working at
Levi's. Which was all wrong and mixed up, because William B. didn't even work and we'd
have been a few dollars richer each week without her having to buy his whiskey and Pall
Malls. It was like she had this picture in her head of the perfect family and it would fall
apart without a man in it. But I couldn't help thinking if she'd finally left our real daddy,
who was mean as a snake too, that she would reach a point, a boiling point, where she
would leave William B. the same way. Surely the cat-killing would be the match that set the
fire to make her boil.
I was crying low, squeezing tears through my red-as-fire eyes
while standing before the sink and looking in the medicine cabinet
mirror. I was thirteen and not pretty unless I held my head a certain
way. And still my nose was too thick, my lips were too thick. But my
gray eyes were big as saucers, and when I wasn't crying I looked
okay. I cried anyway.
I could hear Mama in the kitchen, clanging pots under the sink
where the leaking faucet had rotted the floor. I knew she was making
coffee and our breakfast. I felt sorry for her, afraid she might get
sick and die if she didn't get enough sleep. But I didn't want her to
go to bed. One day she did, after working all night, and all that Saturday
J.J. and me had to sit in the living room and watch TV while William B. drank and
smoked and stared mean at me.I don't know why he would do that, and I'm not saying he
ever tried anything dirty with me, but he hated me. Maybe because he knew deep down that
I wanted Mama to leave him. That I was looking for just the right mistake or evil act of his
to make her go at last. Like the cats. Was I glad he killed my cats? I cried louder, but not
loud, just till my ears felt stopped up and my face felt hot.
To keep crying, I pictured the mama cat with William B.’s hands around her neck. Then
I heard the dead leaves crackling on the dirt outside the bathroom window. I could smell his
Pall Mall smoke. From where I was standing, I could see the top of his head through the
little window over the blue bathtub. His broad but bony forehead and his brown straight hair
hanging in his eyes. I held my breath. When I had to let go I smelled bacon frying. Mama's
black iron frying pan scraped across the grill of the old stove. Happy sounds (sometimes I
like crying for how it makes me feel so emptied-out and mellow afterwards). But happiest
of all sounds was the CHU-CHU-CHU of the starter on Mama's car when it was trying to
crank. I heard the engine start finally, then running fast in place, then running fast up the
lane without changing sounds.
"Sister," Mama called.
"Yes ma'am," I said and turned on the water in the sink. I
started to splash my face, but in the mirror I looked so pitiful, so believably
grief-stricken, that I couldn't risk changing a thing.
I opened the door and stepped out. I felt like a phony. I could
feel myself looking phony. Bacon smoke was drifting in the sun
through the kitchen window.
Mama was standing with her back to me, at the sink, getting a
glass of water. She drank, put the glass down on the brown-streaked
linoleum counter. Hearing me sniffling behind her, she said, "Did you
and your daddy have a falling-out over something this morning?"
"No ma'am," I said.
She turned to the stove and began flipping the bacon in the
black iron frying pan with the old turning fork she’d had forever.
"What are you crying about then?"
"He killed her old cats," J.J. yelled from the living room.
"Shut up, J.J.," I yelled back through the doorway.
He was laying on the couch with one muscle-knotted white leg
bent at the knee. "You make me," he said.
"Okay," Mama said and stepped in the doorway beside me. "Now what
happened, buddy?"
J.J. didn't take his eyes off the TV. "He just killed em," he
said low. "That's all."
"Well," she said and went back to the stove. "I can't say I
blame him. You couldn't turn around good with all them cats underfoot."
"Mama!" I cried harder, crossed my arms and walked over to stand
beside her. "Why do you always take up for him?"
"Why're you always trying to start trouble?"
"Like I'm the one killed the cats." I pointed at my chest, poking it twice.
"Don't get smart with me, sister," she said and forked the bacon
to the plate covered in white paper towels.
I could tell her heart wasn't in cooking breakfast now, not and
William B. gone.
###
That afternoon, gray clouds covered the sun and the wind blew
straight through the narrow old house, front and back doors left open. Everything
smelled of pine oil. While Mama cleaned and J.J. watched TV, I hung out the wash on the
clothesline in the back yard. Left of the line was an old grapevine
with a few yellow leaves still clinging to the dead vines. Straight
ahead was an old hog pen made of tin that belonged to the family who
lived there before us. Pecan trees, pine trees, woods and more woods
that we never explored, fields of broomsage each side of the lane out
front.
I hung William B's little-boy sized blue jeans and felt
kind of guilty because Mama was working so hard to make Saturday a
normal Saturday, just like tomorrow she would take us to church to
make Sunday a normal Sunday. I know now that it made no sense for me
to be feeling guilty because William B. had killed my cats, then up
and left, and made Mama break herself down working. But I did feel
guilty, and sad, and there was no way back that I could see to that almost sweet peace of
self-pity I had crying in the bathroom that morning.
Throughout the day, I would think about it with longing. And
then I'd feel guilty about taking advantage of the cat-killing to get
that feeling. It was almost cleansing, down-time from all our
troubles, and we were starting over. Cleaning the house, the clothes,
the yard.
J.J. would jump in the piles of leaves Mama had raked, and she'd
have to rake them up again and beg him to load them in the wheelbar
and haul them out to the hog pen. He would get about half a load and
then push the wheelbar right through where I was raking at the corner of
the house, the very spot where William B. had killed my cats that
morning. Leaves went flying over the sides. He was itching for me to
holler at him so Mama would holler at me. Once he even bumped the backs of
my legs with the wheelbar and I stepped to one side, dying to slap him, to
cry or say something. I was on the verge when I saw the sheriff's car
coming up the lane. Not the first time the law had been by our house.
Mama was raking with her back to the lane, houses-side of the
big water oak, and didn't see the sheriff at first.
I said, "Mama," and she stopped raking and stood watching till
the car came to a stop on the other side of the oak. She fluffed up her hair
and walked toward him, carrying her rake. I followed.
J.J. set the wheelbar back on its rear standards and sat on top
of the leaves inside with his legs hanging out.
The sheriff got out, leaving one foot inside his car, and leaned with his elbows on
the top of the door, talking over it. "How you ladies faring today?" he said.
"Good to see you, sheriff," Mama said in her fast company voice.
"Y'all got it looking good around this old place," he said and
looked all about at the sorry dirt and tan broomsage and dead leaves.
"I always did love this old place, but ain't nobody before took no
pains with it."
Mama looked puffed up, like she was holding her breath. She
said, "Looks like it might rain, don't it?"
"Rain and turn cold, more than likely. That's what they said on
the radio." He stepped out, closed the door and leaned into it with his back. He was
a big man, but not fat. Not ugly and not good-looking. Just lawman-
looking: thick arms importantly crossed over a pooched belly, feet
crossed in black church-type shoes. Big dark glasses hid his eyes and
part of his face.
"Miss Blaine," he started, "you don't know where I might find
your husband at, do you?"
"He was here a whileago, sheriff. Said he was going to get a
tire changed for me."
"That so?"
I stepped closer to Mama, trying to feel if she was scared. I
felt jealous of J.J. sitting in the wheelbar because he'd never have
to be scared like us; I figured he'd grow up to kill cats like
William B. Then I almost cried remembering that like our real
daddy and William B. my brother would probably have to go to
some war or other and come back mean and crazy like they had.
From inside the car came quacky radio talk; the sheriff stuck his head inside the
window, listened, then pulled it out again, speaking to Mama. "Well, you tell
William B. for me, when he gets home, I got a warrant out for his arrest."
"A warrant?"
"Yes um."
"What for?"
"He laid open a ole boy's head for him with a beer bottle. Bout
a hour ago, at the Florida line."
I could feel Mama going tight; I couldn't feel what she was
thinking. I pictured a boy with his skull split, white bone and red
blood. This had to be worse than the cats and this time nothing to do
with me. But I felt scared for myself, for my own safety, same thing
as Mama's safety, I realized.
###
That evening we ate supper with the breeze blowing leaf smoke
straight through the clean house. I don't recall us talking but we
must have, or maybe we didn't. Maybe we were just waiting for William
B. to come in and start waving his pistol and shooting out the
door and cussing and falling asleep drunk on the couch, like on lots
of other Saturdays. Then come Sunday morning, the yards would be
raked and the house clean and we would go to church and William B.
would sulk and drink and talk crazy about Vietnam. Monday,
Mama would go back to work, and we'd all start over.
Once Mama told me the reason William B. was like he was, was
he'd got messed up by the war. I asked which war was that and she
said it didn't matter, war was war. I asked her if it was the same
war that messed up our real daddy, and she said no it was Vietnam
that messed up William B., and it was World War II messed up my daddy. To me he was
only a red-faced man in a picture with me sitting
on top of a long table before my first birthday cake. He was pretending to
blow out the candle. Later, he became somebody my mother loved before
William B. Somebody who cried when we left him and then went
looking for us, gave up, got married again and we slipped his mind.
She put us to bed early, I guess in case William B. came in
and started something. But I lay in the dark watching the seam of
light around my door and listened to her washing dishes and imagined
her getting ready to make herself pretty for him like a girl going on
a date. When I heard her go into the bathroom and start running the
water in the old blue tub, I knew I was right and he could walk in
the door the next minute and she would smile and act like nothing had
ever happened just to keep him. Which made about as much sense as his
killing my cats.
I must have held my breath waiting for him to come in till I got
so sleepy my body took over and breathed anyway. All was quiet except
for the tree frogs peeping outside and my mama blowing her nose.
###
The next morning when I woke up, it was raining, so I figured we
wouldn't be going to church. Sometimes she walked us to church--for
exercise, she said--when he'd taken her old Rambler. He'd called it
an old rust-bucket one time and she'd laughed, then made us help
paint it with some house paint she found under the edge of the house.
The color was apple-green, not a car color, for sure.
That was the year we moved into that house, about a year before
the cat-killing, and with the rest of the paint Mama found, we
painted the rooms different colors. We painted the living room pink,
and the kitchen yellow, and the bedrooms blue--not pretty blue, but bruise blue. The
man owned the place gave Mama the first month's rent free for us painting the house.
The rain pecked on the tin roof and ticked through the leaves of
the trees. When it rained the old house would smell musty and brassy,
like a taste. Like when you press your nose to a window screen and
touch it with your tongue. I wanted to sleep but I couldn't without
knowing if William B. had came back, if it was over for the weekend.
I got up and went through the living room to the door of her
bedroom, left side of the living room. I listened at the closed door
with the missing doorknob, noticed it wasn't latched, pushed it open
a little bit and saw her sleeping with her back to the door. She was
laying with her knees bent and her feet together. The soles were
yellow and grained like wood. She had on her good red nylon gown with a
flounce around the tail. She seemed to be waiting, and I'm sorry to
say she didn't look as good as she hoped to look.
I pulled the door to by its bent-nail handle stuck through the
hole where the knob used to be.
I can't recall ever having thought about romantic love before,
but I thought about it then. In the ticking of raindrops and alone in
the pink living room, I thought about it. I thought about it like I'd
seen on TV and tried to make it fit around the woman waiting on the
bed in there for William B. That woman whose history I knew
better than my own. It was if I hadn't been around long enough, or
mattered enough, or loved enough, to have a history. She got married
the first time when she was thirteen years old, had her first baby by
the time she was fourteen, then three more babies --two sisters and
two brothers I thought of as uncles and aunts when I thought of them at all. She had
worked her hands to the bone on the my real daddy's farm, then left with nothing but her
black iron frying pan and the old turning fork when she fell for William B., for love.
With all my might, I tried to feel what she felt and to make
sense of it. I even opened the door again to look at her yellowed
feet grained like wood and revive the feeling of having wanted to
feel it. I wondered if her love was like my love for the tough-
talking boy who rode my bus--that lit-up feeling inside. But I had to
admit I didn't love him even as much as my cats. I wondered if
someday I'd be waiting for somebody in my good red gown. Then I let
it go and walked out on the screened-in porch to soak up the peace of
a Sunday without William B.