“Don’t you speak to him of girlfriends, Oscar,” Grace snapped. “We don’t want him starting to bring home girls we don’t approve of, girls we don’t know anything about. When Tommy Lee wants to get married, he’ll come and tell his farm mamas that he’s ready, and Lucille and I will comb the countryside till we find the right one. Isn’t that right, Tommy Lee?”
“That’s right, Grace,” Tommy Lee agreed passively.
“Tommy Lee can marry when Grace and I are dead,” said Lucille complacently. “There’s no need for him to think about it before then. Tommy Lee is rich,” she added, although it wasn’t exactly to the point of argument, “and he can have anybody he wants.”
“I don’t want anybody,” said Tommy Lee. “Except Lilah, maybe.”
“Well,” said Grace, “if Miriam could marry Malcolm, then Lilah could certainly marry you.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Tommy Lee, who had a fairly accurate image of himself and his capabilities. “And that’s what I told her.”
“And what did Lilah say?” asked Oscar.
“She said, ‘Not in a million years.’”
“Grace, speak to Miriam about this,” Oscar suggested. “Maybe Miriam could talk some sense into that girl. Tommy Lee, if you and Lilah got married this year, you could start having children before I die.”
“I sure would like to oblige you, Oscar,” said Tommy Lee.
“I’d rather you gave me a little baby for Christmas than those damned old pajamas.”
Zaddie, who had been sitting silently by throughout this little audience, indicated by a motion of her hand that Oscar was weary. Grace, Lucille, and Tommy Lee stood up at that moment, and with only perfunctory ceremony, took their leave.
. . .
The winter of 1968 was particularly cold and wet in south Alabama. Everyone suffered through days of freezing rain, high winds, and cloudy chill evenings, imagining that the next day would dawn clear and warm. It rarely did. Out at Gavin Pond Farm, Lucille was worried about some new, small, and very rare camellias she had just set out in the fall. She looked at them carefully every day, and every day grew glummer and glummer, for the expensive plants looked as though they were dying. She went out in the rain every day, shoveled new soil around their roots, carefully covered them with plastic, and constructed small protective fences about them. Toward the end of February, when warmer weather was sure to come at last, Lucille’s efforts proved a success, and the rare camellias gave every indication of survival. Lucille, however, was now laid up in bed with what seemed to be a severe cold. This, after hanging on for a week, was diagnosed as pneumonia, and she was placed in Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. Grace, Tommy Lee, and Elinor worked out a schedule to spend alternate days with her so that she would never lack for company.
Oscar complained to Elinor about being left alone. “Let Grace or Tommy Lee go. I need you here, Elinor.”
“Grace has a lot to do at the farm, Oscar. And Tommy Lee has plenty to keep him busy. I’m glad to go, and I have to do it. Lucille would fret if there wasn’t somebody by her bedside. And I don’t know what you mean by being all alone anyway. Isn’t Zaddie in here every minute of the day when I’m not? Besides, they shoo us out of that hospital at eleven, so I can be home at midnight.”
Visiting hours were over much earlier in much of the hospital, but Lucille had a private room, and in any case the Caskeys were a well-known family in the area. There was no trouble made about these quiet visits beyond the stated times.
On these evenings when Elinor was away at Lucille’s bedside, Oscar was at a loss. Football season was over, and he was no aficionado of basketball, and so the radio was of no use to him. He pouted at being alone. He’d tell Miriam and Malcolm and Billy to go out somewhere and eat. If Elinor wasn’t going to be around, he didn’t want any of them. Zaddie brought up his dinner, and then sat with him through the evening news, but directly afterward Oscar sent her down with the tray. “Come back up and turn down my bed, Zaddie. I’ve got weary bones today.”
“It’s the rain, Mr. Oscar,” said Zaddie comfortingly. “It’s the rain makes you tired all the time.”
“Maybe. Maybe it is,” said Oscar, listening for a moment to the sound of the rain beating against the sill of the sitting room window. “Where’d they go out to dinner? You know?”
“They all went out to the farm, Mr. Oscar. Tommy Lee shot some birds, I guess.”
“Not hunting season, though. That boy’s gone get in trouble one of these days. So they’ve left us all alone, Zaddie.”
Zaddie did not go downstairs with the tray, for Oscar seemed disposed to talk. She went into the bedroom and turned his bed down as he liked it.
“That was a good supper, Zaddie!” he called out.
“Glad you liked it,” Zaddie called back.
“Just you and me here tonight, Zaddie. You and me and the rain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Elinor tells me the rain has beat down all the azaleas this year.”
“Yes, sir. Not much left.”
“That’s too bad. Elinor’s always been proud of her azaleas.”
Zaddie came back into the sitting room. “You going right to bed, Mr. Oscar?”
“I think I will. All this rain is making me sleepy.”
“Me too, Mr. Oscar. You need any help in getting in your pajamas?”
“No, I’ll be all right. You go on downstairs. You got a little Sapp down there to help you clean up?”
“I sure do. I got two of them sitting there in the kitchen watching the television.”
“All right. I tell you what, Zaddie. You go on down there and get things cleaned up, then come on back up here and just check and make sure I’m all right.” Oscar didn’t want Zaddie’s help in getting undressed—that would have been humiliating. On the other hand, he almost always now needed Elinor’s help to untie his shoes, unbuckle his belt, and find the pajamas he liked best. He wasn’t so certain that he could manage all that by himself.
“You need the light, Mr. Oscar?” Zaddie asked as she picked up the tray.
“Light’s not gone do me much good, Zaddie,” Oscar replied in a low, weary voice. “You go on downstairs.”
“I’ll be back up in a little while and make sure you’re comfortable, Mr. Oscar.”
Zaddie went downstairs, leaving Oscar in the darkness of the second floor. The rain had increased in intensity in the past half hour. Feeling his way from the sitting room into the bedroom, he passed by the window and was splashed with water. He jerked his arm away, then squeezed his wet sleeve around his wrist. He seated himself on the edge of the bed, and pulled his shoes off without bothering to untie them. He removed his socks, and then went carefully to work on his belt. After a few moments, he was relieved to hear it unbuckle. He removed his pants and his undershorts, then undid the cuffs of his shirt, allowing the links to drop to the floor. He took off his shirt and his undershirt and then shuffled to the dresser. He opened one drawer and felt about for his underwear; but that drawer seemed to have nothing but socks. He opened the drawer below that, and found a pair of pajamas. He put them on, but something about their feel and their odor convinced him that this was not one of the two pairs that he was most used to. He went by slow steps back to the bed and climbed in, pulling the covers up to his chin. Had it not been for the unfamiliar pajamas, he would have been very content. Elinor had made the bed that morning just the way he liked it; Zaddie had turned it down, fixing the pillows just as he always wanted them.
It was still early in the evening, but because the noise of the rain kept him from hearing—as he might have heard—Zaddie and the young Sapp girls in the kitchen, it seemed very late. Oscar felt that he could have fallen asleep immediately, had it not been for the unfamiliar pajamas. These were probably a pair that Tommy Lee had given him the Christmas before. Tommy Lee, Oscar reflected yet once again, always gave him pajamas, and always the wrong kind. He wondered how many pairs of this wrong kind of pajamas had burned up i
n James’s house. Hundreds, probably. Dressersful, trunksful of pajamas, still in their cellophane packages, still bearing shreds of paper and tape and ribbon.
But not even the feel of the unfamiliar, wrong sort of pajamas was enough to overcome the soporific influence of the beating rain, and Oscar Caskey soon fell deeply asleep.
. . .
He awoke sometime later—how much later, he had no way of knowing. It was still raining. The house still felt empty; Elinor was not yet in bed beside him. He sighed, and now wished he hadn’t gone to bed so early. He wondered if Zaddie had come back upstairs to check on him. He wished he knew what time it was. One of the problems about being blind was that you never knew what time it was. You lost your ability to gauge passing hours by changes in shadow and light. And now the pajamas felt more uncomfortable than before. Pajamas ought to be made out of cotton, pure cotton, and nothing else, Oscar thought. These were obviously something else; they would keep him awake all night. The more he thought about the pajamas, the more convinced Oscar became that he would have to get up out of bed and find one of the right pairs. Ones that were all cotton, that hadn’t been starched, that had been worn in this bed before. While he lay in the bed wondering if he should get up that very moment or wait for a little bit, he began to think that he heard voices underneath the rain. Perhaps Elinor had returned, and was talking to Zaddie downstairs. The sound of the rain was loud, however, and he couldn’t even be certain that his ears weren’t playing tricks on him.
“Elinor!” he called. His own voice sounded muffled and dim in the heavy atmosphere. She wouldn’t have heard him even if she had been in the next room. “Elinor!” he called again, this time more loudly.
A voice seemed to answer in reply. But whose voice, and where it came from and what it said, he couldn’t determine. It was the rain, beating against the sills, foaming down the screens, spilling onto the baseboards, that prevented his knowing who else was in the house.
He lay still, forgetting about the pajamas, and listened, straining to hear a repetition of those voices. His eyes were wide open and staring, but he saw nothing at all.
Oscar!
He heard that. He heard his name called. Whoever had called him was on the second floor, not in the sitting room, but out in the hall. Down the hall, probably all the way at the other end in the front room.
“Elinor?’ he said feebly, knowing it was not Elinor, and not Zaddie, who had called to him.
The voice did not come again. Oscar tried to remember it, tried to recreate in his mind, over the noise of the rain, the precise configuration of those two familiar syllables so that he could know who was calling him from the front room. Billy, he thought at first. Billy could have gone down the linen corridor from his room to the front room, opened the door, and called his name. Yet it wasn’t Billy’s voice. Billy said his name differently.
“Who is it?” Oscar called, and pushed back the covers on the bed.
It might have been Miriam, or Malcolm, or even Grace, Oscar thought feverishly—but what would any of them be doing in the front room? No one went up to the front part of the house anymore. Wasn’t it strange how patterns become ingrained in a reduced household? There were three bedrooms up there, at the front of the house, and they were never used. Oscar had even heard Zaddie say she didn’t make up the beds there anymore, because if she did the sheets would get moldy before anybody slept on them again.
Oscar eased down off the bed. The floor was cold, and felt damp beneath his bare feet. He took a few steps toward the door to the sitting room, stopping suddenly when he trod painfully on one of his cuff links. He kicked it aside, and went on, waving his arms before him. The air was chill; Zaddie ought to have closed more of the windows, he thought. When he had felt his way to the door he paused, grasping the frame on both sides; he bent forward and listened. He heard nothing but the rain. Though there was but a single window in the sitting room, the noise of the rain seemed louder than it was in the bedroom. If he shut all the windows, he’d be able to hear if his name was called again, but he mistrusted his ability to maneuver that well without stumbling over the furniture. And as long as he was this far, he might as well go out into the hallway.
He did so, and listened intently. The rain drummed against the staircase window to his left. Beneath that drumming, Oscar thought he detected something more—a shuffling, a moving about, and a whispering. It seemed to come from the front of the house—from the front room.
“Elinor?” he called, not because he thought Elinor was in the house, but because it was Elinor who he wished were at his side. He crossed the hallway, and dragging his hand along the damp wallpaper, he made his way toward the front of the house. The whispers and the shuffling stopped, and all he heard was the drumming rain.
“Who is it?” he asked loudly. “Who’s in there?”
He reached the front room door and then pressed his ear against one of the panels. A gust of wind blew rain against the door inset with stained glass at the front of the hall, but after a moment, the regular beat of the rain resumed.
Oscar knocked on the front room door. “Who’s in there?” he called.
He heard rustling inside, as if someone—or more than just one person—had suddenly moved about.
“Who is it?” he cried again. He pressed his right hand against the door, and ran it downward until he had grasped the knob. He turned the knob, and was about to push the door open, when once more his name was called.
Oscar!
“Mama?” he said. “Mama, is that you?”
He pushed open the door.
“Mama?” he said again.
Oscar!
Him? Is it him? cried the second voice, in an eager, piping lisp; the voice of a small boy.
He had heard his mother’s voice on his right. Oscar shuffled in that direction. Having no memory of the arrangement of furniture in the front room, he was wary of bumping into something. “Mama, if that’s you, answer me.” He heard the springs of the bed creak, as if someone had sat down on the edge of it. More creaks, and in different configurations, suggested that someone else had just lain down on the bed.
Him? Is it him? the small voice repeated.
Yes, came the reply from the bed.
Oscar heard a slight scuffle against the floor, and then immediately felt small arms—the arms of a child—grasping him around his thighs. The child’s arms were wet, and their dampness penetrated the cloth of Oscar’s pajamas. Oscar struggled to maintain his balance, but fell forward. Fortunately he was near the bed, and that stopped him. He reached out into that blackness, and his hand was suddenly gripped tight. The hand that grasped his was wet and slick. Its nails dug into his palm.
At the same time, the child dragged at his legs, attempting to pull him down to the floor.
This one. This one, hissed the child.
Oscar struggled. He freed his hand, then turned around, sitting on the edge of the bed. He flailed his arms before him, and grabbed the child. The boy tore viciously at Oscar with his long nails.
“Who is this?” Oscar cried, holding the child tight, and drawing him close. The boy was wet all over, and he stank. The foul air of the Perdido was breathed into Oscar’s face.
John Robert, said the voice behind Oscar. Oscar felt the mattresses of the bed shifting beneath him. Whoever was behind him was sitting up. Two arms grasped him tightly from behind.
“John Robert DeBordenave,” whispered Oscar, suddenly letting the child go. The name came to him without his searching for it, without his even remembering that such a child had ever existed, without his being able to recall what had ever become of him. Oscar heard the boy scramble away. Some small piece of furniture was knocked over, and Oscar heard the splinter of wood.
John Robert was dead. He had drowned in the Perdido. Oscar now remembered that. But if John Robert was dead, and were yet here in this room, then Oscar’s mother Mary-Love, who was also dead, might be here as well. Oscar grasped the arms that held him tight. He turned his
head over his shoulder. “Mama?” he asked. “Mama, is that you? Don’t hold me so tight, you’re squeezing me.”
But if it was Mary-Love, then Mary-Love wouldn’t let go. She squeezed Oscar tighter, until it seemed that he could not breathe at all. And meanwhile John Robert was further smashing up the piece of furniture he had overturned.
The rain beat against the front room windows, and it seemed to Oscar as if he were beneath the waters of the river, so deep and pervasive was the smell of the Perdido in the room. He scarcely noticed at first when John Robert began to beat him about the legs with a stick. But that insensitivity became pain as John Robert turned the stick around and a protruding nail—bent and rusted, but still sharp—was jabbed repeatedly into his legs, ripping his flesh as easily as it ripped the cloth of his pajamas.
“Mama,” Oscar pleaded, “stop him. Stop him. I cain’t. I’m blind. Mama...”
Oscar may have been wrong. It may not have been Mary-Love. But whoever it was, she did not stop John Robert, but instead she pushed Oscar forward onto the floor. And John Robert stood over him, and beat him about the breast and shoulders with the stick, digging the single nail again and again into Oscar’s flesh with a savage monotony.
Oscar lay trembling, and then he lay still. Then he heard his mother’s voice, slow and melancholy. Not for you, Oscar. But for Elinor.
“Mama?” said Oscar weakly. “Mama, I lost my eyes...”
The relentlessly beating stick moved upward toward Oscar’s face.