Red Sky at Morning: A Novel

1

We were using the old blue china and the stainless steel cutlery, with place mats on the big oval table and odd-sized jelly glasses for the wine. The good stuff was all packed and stored, and the Salvation Army was due the next day for the leftovers. My mother called this last dinner a picnic, but she didn’t wear her overalls to it. She had on the blue hostess gown with the purple flowers.

Dad looked four sizes smaller in his newly delivered summer uniform, and the tight stock collar was giving him trouble. He kept swallowing and twisting his neck. The two and a half stripes looked good, though; they made a nice contrast with Jimbob Buel’s civilian seersucker. He was holding a glass of my father’s Tavel rosé, looking at the candlelight through the wine, the perfect Virginia connoisseur. He was probably thinking a seventeen-year-old snot like me was too young to know its virtues.

Well, I do know its virtues, Jimbob boy. Paul and I knocked off a bottle of it just last week, warm, a refined accompaniment to cornbread and beef cracklins.

Courtney Ann Conway squeezed my leg under the table. Ah bet you’ll be sorry, leavin’ Mobile with all the pawties and all comin’ up. I didn’t answer right away. I was figuring how to get Jimbob into the Bankhead Tunnel, and pump a little mustard gas in there. If I could block the exits, and use two pumps, maybe . . . .

Josh, are you listenin’ to me?

I’m sorry, Corky. I know I’ll miss a lot of parties, but I really have to leave town. You know: the war and everything.

You’re such a brave and manly chap, said Jimbob. I think it’s charming of you to defend your country off there in Utah, or Iowa, or wherever it is.

Mr. Buel, I forgot you were wearing khaki. The candlelight makes your clothes look more like seersucker.

Now, Joshua, said Mother, very sharp and offended. "That is enough of that. Quite enough. You’ve been terribly rude this evening. Mr. Buel’s asthma is well-known."

Sorry again, I said. Sorry all around. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

Josh, said my father, have some more ham-with-Coca-Cola-sauce. Probably the last time you’ll have it for the duration. He picked up a thick slice of the nasty stuff with the serving knife and fork, and I passed my plate. Glup. Good salt-cured Tennessee smoked ham. Perfectly decent Coca-Cola from Atlanta. Put them all together, you’ve got Secrets from a Southern Kitchen.

Jimbob’s helping himself to another glass of wine; I notice he’s not eating the ham. Corky’s burping, soft and low, an excellent thing in woman. I suppose the bubbles in the sauce got to her. And Amalie’s sitting over there stoking it away, okra and ham on the fork at the same time, all stuck together with grits.

I think the Navy’s so romantic, Mr. Arnold. You look like a regulah ol’ salt. Good for you, Cork. Even with your head full of cornpone you always say the right thing. I’ll bet old Oscar Wilde is lying there in Paris right now, gnawing on his knuckles, wishing he could have made bright talk like that.

Miss Courtney’s absolutely right, Frank, said Jimbob. You seem positively encrusted with salt. And to be a Commodore right off the . . . .

Commander.

. . . Commander, pardon me, right off the bat like that, why, the Navy Department must have great faith in your seamanship. My family, of course, were usually Army, not nearly so fashionable.

I’m considered a fair hand with a Dolphin-class sloop, I admit, Dad said, straightening up and looking a little keener. It’s a shame the Navy isn’t using them this war. Last I heard, they’d converted to ironclads throughout.

And rightly so, I maintain, Amalie said, poking her fork at Dad. She’s been concentrating on the grits so hard she hasn’t heard anything. Look at her sitting there like a big pale lady bullfrog; that concentration on the grits is paying off in fanny.

Rightly so what, Amalie? my father said, genuinely puzzled.

That about the boats, with the iron on them. Much better. Didn’t you say something about putting iron on boats? Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea, and I’m only sorry they didn’t think of it sooner. Frank, honey, would you pass me another slice of that delicious ham, and maybe a tee-ninecy spoonful of okra? Lord, Ann, I surely wish you’d give me the recipe for that delicious ham. Everytime I have it here I eat more than’s good for me. Thank you, Frank. Little more grits? Thank you, honey.

There’s really nothing to it, said Mother. "The trick is, you’re supposed to warm the Coca-Cola before you pour it over the ham. Then you just keep on basting. Lacey got it right the first time I showed her how." Yeah, she got it right, and she still cries every time she has to pour Coca-Cola over a country ham. You messed up the best cook anybody ever had, and I’m glad she’s got a good job at the compass factory. They don’t float that old needle in Coca-Cola.

You do run a superlative kitchen, Miss Ann, Jimbob said. And you get a superlative amount of free victuals over here, too, don’t you, Buel boy? When’s the last time you missed a meal with us? Was it the time I had the mumps? Must have been. You wouldn’t want to catch it and have that patrician Virginia jawline puff up. You wouldn’t want somebody to safety-pin your pajama bottoms to the bed. If Grant’s artillery had been a little sharper they might have hit your house and killed your grandfather, and stopped the whole useless line of Buels right there. Worst mistake of the war.

We finished off the dinner with some pineapple and chopped marshmallow, a grand old recipe Mother had found in the Girl Scout Cookbook, while Dad explained that he wouldn’t be put in full command of the Pacific Fleet until he got a few weeks of seasoning and some training in Care of the Uniform, How to Salute, and Spitting into the Wind.

Mother pressed the little button with her toe while we were having coffee, and Paul came in. Call Lacey in, too, Paul, Mother said. This was Mother’s big surprise, a $10 bill for each of them, token of the affection and loyalty, etc. etc. etc., and we certainly were going to miss them when we set up housekeeping in Sagrado, etc. etc. etc., and we’ll be coming back to Mobile as soon as the war’s over etc. etc. etc., and their old jobs will be waiting for them if the defense plants don’t inflate the economy, etc. etc. etc., and be sure to write.

I don’t know how Paul and Lacey faked those happy smiles and sounded so grateful. Dad had slipped them a $500 check that afternoon, and a letter with the lawyer’s name and address so they could get more if something happened to their jobs. But they beamed and wailed and carried on, and said Mother was a real lady, and all of that, on top of the ham, just about did it for me. One more minute and someone would have to help me from the room. We all clapped for Mother, with Dad clapping the fiercest of all, the hypocrite. He gave me a great wink when nobody was looking.

After dinner they settled down to a last bridge game at a fortieth-of-a-cent a point, which meant that on a really exciting night maybe a dollar and a quarter changed hands. I never learned the game. Paul taught me seven-card stud, and that was enough for me. Corky asked if she could watch because it mus’ be fascinatin’ to be able to play such a stimulatin’ cawd game, and I went out to the kitchen.

Lacey was doing the dishes, and Paul was drying, packing them away in a box for the Salvation Army. She had tear streaks on her dark face, as she always had when she’d been laughing hard.

What are you two going to do with those big old ten-dollar bills? I asked. That’s a lot of money for a couple of childish darkies.

Paul whooped and almost dropped a cup. Lacey turned on me and said that if I ever told my mother about the money Mr. Arnold gave them she, Lacey, would kick my butt clear to Pensacola.

I’d like to be able to tell her something, I said. I think she’s afraid you’re going to buy a two-dollar Iver-Johnson thirty-two-caliber Saturday Night Special and shoot a policeman with it. As a matter of fact, I think that’s what she wants you to do.

I’m going to give my ten dollars to Reverend Father Muzzo, said Lacey. He’s had his eye on a new pipe organ for a couple of years now.

If it’s all right with you, I’ll tell her you’re thinking of getting a half-dozen bottles of hair straightener and a pair of red high-heeled shoes. It would put her mind more at rest.

Be better if she did, Paul said. Every spare dime she gets she gives it to the mackerel-snappers. I should have married a nice Methodist girl when I had the chance. They save their money.

I think Mother wants you to sing later, Lacey. Will you?

I might as well. It’s the last time. You know, I have to tell about that singing every time I go to confession? Reverend Father says it’s not a big sin, but I keep adding ’em up.

You want a little drink of your father’s wine? Paul asked. Me and Lacey popped the cork on a real good one, nice and sweet. Tastes kind of like muscat, but smoother. I’ll get it out of the icebox.

Paul and I each had half a jelly glass of Château Yquem, 1934. As he said, it was nice and sweet, but a little too sticky for my taste. Lacey gave me a roasted coffee bean to chew on, for breath, and I went back to the living room.

Two clubs, Dad was saying. I personally give this hand to Adolf Hitler, and if he can play it I’ll cede the British Isles to the son of a bitch.

Frank, said mother, the rules on bidding are clear, and that’s illegal.

As far as I’m concerned, Amalie said, that’s a plain little old two-club bid. If he’s talking in code I don’t know it.

I saw that Corky’s blue eyes were beginning to mist over with boredom, so I invited her out to the arbor, the most romantic arbor in Mobile, full of gardenias and Russian olives and oleanders and azaleas. Come on, I said to her. I have something to show you.

What?

A dead cat on the end of a string. Come on. I’ll let you swing it yourself.

She shivered, but she came along.

Lucky fellow, said Jimbob, with that nasty smirk.

It was hot and still in the garden. All the lights of Mobile were bouncing off the clouds and coming back orange. Corky took deep breaths as we walked toward the arbor, and said the gardenias smelled heavenly. To me, gardenias smell like a big pot of boiling sugar, or a hot cookie.

They sure do, I said.

Do they have gardenias out there in the mountains where you’re going?

I don’t think so, I said. I couldn’t remember. They have piñon trees, and aspens, but they don’t smell like much of anything. What a dumb conversation.

Will you miss me?

Sure I’ll miss you. But will you miss me? You’ll miss me for about ten minutes, until old Bubba Gagnier starts taking you out in that leaky catboat of his, and giving you that stuff about his old man’s eighteen hundred acres of loblolly pine in Sumter County.

You think I’m a good dancer?

You’re a great dancer, Cork. I don’t know how you stand dancing with me. How do your toes feel now, by the way? I’d stomped on her that past Saturday.

You didn’t hurt me one little bit. Besides, it wasn’t your fault. Somebody shoved you. I’d heard toe bones cracking, and she’d limped through two foxtrots, a waltz and the Conga.

We sat in the arbor swing. I said, Corky, I’ll really miss you, and put my arm over her shoulder. I knew right away it was a mistake, because she was wearing a skimpy sun dress and her shoulders were just as sticky as her hands. I took a deep breath and kissed her, and we held on without breathing for a count of forty-three, Alabama style. During the count, I waited for the earth to move, as Mr. Hemingway suggested it might, but there was no action, as usual.

We took deep breaths and kissed some more. Courtney Ann Conway always closed her eyes. Several other girls at Point Clear Day School closed their eyes, although I never mentioned that to Corky. I kept mine open and unfocused, and she appeared to have four closed eyes. Then I crossed mine, and her right eye seemed to drift across the bridge of her nose and land somewhere above her left eye.

She let me put one hand down the top of her sun dress. It was a tight fit, and very clammy work in all the heat. The swing was moving, all right, but the earth was just sitting there.

The screen door opened, and Paul stuck his head out. You all better come in, Josh. Your mother says come on. Lacey’s going to sing.

Courtney Ann said, Shoot.

I worked my hand out of her dress. It was really sweaty, and I wanted to dry it off on my pants leg, but that wouldn’t have been good manners.

Dad and Jimbob were sitting on the big sofa. Mother was playing chords, and Amalie was standing by the piano at her left, ready to turn pages if there were going to be any pages to turn. Lacey was standing in the curve of the piano, blushing through her dark skin and saying, as usual, that she sounded like a bullfrog. That wasn’t true; Lacey had a high, strong sweet soprano. She just didn’t like to sing Protestant songs.

This whole singing business had started about three years before, when a marine architect from Connecticut came to our house and mentioned that the only thing he liked better than a yar hull was listening to spirituals. Mother told him we had a colored woman working for us, and all colored women could sing, so she called Lacey out and asked her if she sang at church. Lacey said she sometimes hummed along with the choir, especially on Stabat Mater. The Little Flower of Jesus Catholic Church had an all-white choir.

Do you know ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’? the man from Connecticut asked her.

No, sir.

You know ‘Deep River’?

No, sir.

Lacey, don’t be silly, said Mother. All of your . . . everybody knows those songs. They’re traditional.

That night we taught Lacey two verses and the chorus of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and the man from Connecticut said her heart might be with Rome, but she sang like a Baptist.

The next day I drew a month’s allowance in advance and bought Lacey a copy of One Hundred Twenty Negro Spirituals, arranged for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, and we picked out the tunes on the piano together. Lacey learned to sing Hold On, and Sweet Li’l Jesus Boy, and Joshua Fit de Battle ob Jericho, and Ain’ Gwine Study War No Mo’, and Dry Bones, and ten or twenty others, and every Saturday she went to confession and laid her soul bare about backsliding.

On this last night, we started off with Swing Low, and Lacey sang it just the way Mother liked, with lots of sliding up to notes and putting blues catches in her voice, which she’d learned by listening to my Bessie Smith records, and Amalie helped her by squawking out what she thought were African Baptist exclamations during the dotted notes:

LACEY

Swing low, sweet chariot

Comin’ for to carry me home

AMALIE

Sweet, Jee-eee-sus!

LACEY

Swing low . . . .

AMALIE

Ha’ mercy!

LACEY

. . . sweet chariot

Comin’ for to carry me home.

AMALIE

Hallelujah!

Every time Amalie let out a howl Dad winced, but Mother and Jimbob and Corky just beamed and congratulated themselves on their appreciation of the genuine, right-from-the-belly, folk music.

Lacey sang till eleven, and then she and Paul had to catch the last bus across town. We gave each other hugs, and I cried and Lacey cried, and Paul told me to stay out of the wine and to write to them if I could think of something to say that wasn’t childish. When they left I walked Corky to her house around the corner, kissed her good-by, and went home.

2

It was still hot and damp when I went to bed, and the sheets were gummy. The usual lone mosquito whined around the room, waiting to pounce and drink a little blood. The room was empty and spooky, with nothing in it but my suitcase and the big tester bed.

I thought about Sagrado, and how cool it would be there, even in summer, but I was going to miss Mobile and the lumpy old house and Paul and Lacey and those Swedes at the shipyard and sailing on the Bay and swimming on Santa Rosa and even old Corky, with those hands like a pair of warm oysters.

Someone knocked on my door, which startled me, because people usually just busted right in. I said, Come in, and the big carved door swung open. In the light from the hall I could see it was Amalie Ledoux, carrying her bourbon and water and blinking her eyes.

Nobody had ever mentioned it right out to me, but I understood that twenty years before, when Dad first came down from Baltimore with his new degree in Marine Engineering, a couple of good ideas, and a chinchy bank loan, it had been a sort of tossup between Amalie and Mother, the acknowledged belles of the season. Even in those funny 1924 flat-chested dresses they had been knockouts. Amalie had looked fresh and rosy and jolly, then. Maybe Dad could read her bone structure the way he could read a marine blueprint, and prophesy that her stern would begin to draw more and more water, and her prow would thicken enough to impair her headway. I don’t know. He married Ann Dabney Devereaux, anyway, the one the young men brought punch to and opened windows for, and Mother’s lines were trim as ever while Amalie, as he put it, had become beamy, deep and able.

Where’s your light switch, Josh? Amalie said, groping around.

It’s on the other wall, on the other side of the door. The architect had a great sense of humor.

It’s just too much bother in all this heat. She closed the door and slid her feet over the floor until her knees bumped against the bed. May I sit down here on the side of your bed?

Sure, I said. Plenty of room. Me and the Dionne quintuplets could fit in here, with space left over for a couple of half-hounds.

My, Amalie said, taking a pull at her bourbon, that sounds like quite a scene. She sat on the edge of the bed and the mattress tipped way over to her side.

You’re going to miss your house, aren’t you? This beautiful old place.

I’ll live through it, Amalie. We’ll be back as soon as the war’s over.

Well, I promise I’ll rent it to some real nice people who’ll take care of it. When you all get back from the West it’ll be just like it was. Everything will be just like it was.

Amalie, can I have a sip of your drink?

Why, sure, honey. It’s real weak anyway. She handed me the glass, and patted my knee through the sheet when I took it. I didn’t know you were a bourbon drinker.

I’m not, really, I said, but it’s hot up here. The water out of the tap’s warm. As I drank, I could taste her lipstick on the glass, like strawberries.

That little Courtney’s a cute girl, Amalie said. Did you say good-by to her properly. Or, uh, improperly?

I kissed her, and told her to stay off Bubba Gagnier’s cat-boat while I’m gone.

That sounds terribly proper to me.

Either way, she’ll probably be crewing for Bubba inside a week, and sticking cleats in the wrong grommets.

Doing what for Bubba?

Crewing. Aw, come on, Amalie, you know what I mean. Helping out on the boat.

She swallowed the last of her drink and stood up, smoothing down her dress. May I kiss you good-by, Josh?

Okay, I said. Sure. Always the continental lover. I knock the ladies over with my epigrams.

She leaned over and kissed me right on the mouth, and we breathed a little bourbon on each other. Then she patted my leg, and squeezed. You take good care of your mama out there, hear? Maybe I’ll come see you. She walked to the door and opened it. The light from the hall didn’t do her a bit of good.

I lay in the hot dark and thought about the Bay, and how it smelled on an April day with a ten-knot breeze from the north. There wasn’t any sailing water at all in Sagrado, not even a good-sized river. Dad didn’t have to send us out there to the boondocks. That stuff about how showy it was to keep two houses running in wartime made a little sense, but his other reason—that Grand Admiral Doenitz was probably going to order Admiral Raeder to sneak up the Bay in U-Boats and shell the Semmes Hotel—that was crazy. I think he just wanted us out of here, for private reasons.

It was just too hot to sleep, so I got out of bed, turned on the wall light and lay on the carpet to do push-ups, which sometimes help. There was a mark on the floor where my faithful, genuine horsehair rocking horse, Skipper, had stood for years. He belonged to the Orphans’ Home now. As I did the push-ups I said, in rhythm: Good-by, old Skip, I’m a-leavin’ Cheyenne.

I didn’t hear Dad come in, but when I’d done about thirty-five, and was about poohed out, he put his foot in the small of my back and like to scared me to death.

"Boy, you are really out of your head. I have raised me up a genuine imbecile, with documents to prove