A Christmas Memory Read online

  Of course it wasn’t that I hated school; what I hated was Odd Henderson. The torments he contrived! For instance, he used to wait for me in the shadows under a water oak that darkened an edge of the school grounds; in his hand he held a paper sack stuffed with prickly cockleburs collected on his way to school. There was no sense in trying to outrun him, for he was quick as a coiled snake; like a rattler, he struck, slammed me to the ground and, his slitty eyes gleeful, rubbed the burrs into my scalp. Usually a circle of kids ganged around to titter, or pretend to; they didn’t really think it funny; but Odd made them nervous and ready to please. Later, hiding in a toilet in the boys’ room, I would untangle the burrs knotting my hair; this took forever and always meant missing the first bell.

  Our second-grade teacher, Miss Armstrong, was sympathetic, for she suspected what was happening; but eventually, exasperated by my continual tardiness, she raged at me in front of the whole class: “Little mister big britches. What a big head he has! Waltzing in here twenty minutes after the bell. A half hour.” Whereupon I lost control; I pointed at Odd Henderson and shouted: “Yell at him. He’s the one to blame. The sonafabitch.”

  I knew a lot of curse words, yet even I was shocked when I heard what I’d said resounding in an awful silence, and Miss Armstrong, advancing toward me clutching a heavy ruler, said, “Hold out your hands, sir. Palms up, sir.” Then, while Odd Henderson watched with a small citric smile, she blistered the palms of my hands with her brass-edged ruler until the room blurred.

  It would take a page in small print to list the imaginative punishments Odd inflicted, but what I resented and suffered from most was the sense of dour expectations he induced. Once, when he had me pinned against a wall, I asked him straight out what had I done to make him dislike me so much; suddenly he relaxed, let me loose and said, “You’re a sissy. I’m just straightening you out.” He was right, I was a sissy of sorts, and the moment he said it, I realized there was nothing I could do to alter his judgment, other than toughen myself to accept and defend the fact.

  As soon as I regained the peace of the warm kitchen, where Queenie might be gnawing an old dug-up bone and my friend puttering with a piecrust, the weight of Odd Henderson would blessedly slide from my shoulders. But too often at night, the narrow lion eyes loomed in my dreams while his high, harsh voice, pronouncing cruel promises, hissed in my ears.

  My friend’s bedroom was next to mine; occasionally cries arising from my nightmare upheavals wakened her; then she would come and shake me out of an Odd Henderson coma. “Look,” she’d say, lighting a lamp, “you’ve even scared Queenie. She’s shaking.” And, “Is it a fever? You’re wringing wet. Maybe we ought to call Doctor Stone.” But she knew that it wasn’t a fever, she knew that it was because of my troubles at school, for I had told and told her how Odd Henderson treated me.

  But now I’d stopped talking about it, never mentioned it any more, because she refused to acknowledge that any human could be as bad as I made him out. Innocence, preserved by the absence of experience that had always isolated Miss Sook, left her incapable of encompassing an evil so complete.

  “Oh,” she might say, rubbing heat into my chilled hands, “he only picks on you out of jealousy. He’s not smart and pretty as you are.” Or, less jestingly, “The thing to keep in mind, Buddy, is this boy can’t help acting ugly; he doesn’t know any different. All those Henderson children have had it hard. And you can lay that at Dad Henderson’s door. I don’t like to say it, but that man never was anything except a mischief and a fool. Did you know Uncle B. horsewhipped him once? Caught him beating a dog and horsewhipped him on the spot. The best thing that ever happened was when they locked him up at State Farm. But I remember Molly Henderson before she married Dad. Just fifteen or sixteen she was, and fresh from somewhere across the river. She worked for Sade Danvers down the road, learning to be a dressmaker. She used to pass here and see me hoeing in the garden—such a polite girl, with lovely red hair, and so appreciative of everything; sometimes I’d give her a bunch of sweet peas or a japonica, and she was always so appreciative. Then she began strolling by arm in arm with Dad Henderson—and him so much older and a perfect rascal, drunk or sober. Well, the Lord must have His reasons. But its a shame; Molly can’t be more than thirty-five, and there she is without a tooth in her head or a dime to her name. Nothing but a houseful of children to feed. You’ve got to take all that into account, Buddy, and be patient.”

  Patient! What was the use of discussing it? Finally, though, my friend did comprehend the seriousness of my despair. The realization arrived in a quiet way and was not the outcome of unhappy midnight wakings or pleading scenes with Uncle B. It happened one rainy November twilight when we were sitting alone in the kitchen close by the dying stove fire; supper was over, the dishes stacked, and Queenie was tucked in a rocker, snoring. I could hear my friend’s whispery voice weaving under the skipping noise of rain on the roof, but my mind was on my worries and I was not attending, though I was aware that her subject was Thanksgiving, then a week away.

  My cousins had never married (Uncle B. had almost married, but his fiancée returned the engagement ring when she saw that sharing a house with three very individual spinsters would be part of the bargain); however, they boasted extensive family connections throughout the vicinity: cousins aplenty, and an aunt, Mrs. Mary Taylor Wheelwright, who was one hundred and three years old. As our house was the largest and the most conveniently located, it was traditional for these relations to aim themselves our way every year at Thanksgiving; though there were seldom fewer than thirty celebrants, it was not an onerous chore, because we provided only the setting and an ample number of stuffed turkeys.

  The guests supplied the trimmings, each of them contributing her particular specialty: a cousin twice removed, Harriet Parker from Flomaton, made perfect ambrosia, transparent orange slices combined with freshly ground coconut; Harriet’s sister Alice usually arrived carrying a dish of whipped sweet potatoes and raisins; the Conklin tribe, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Conklin and their quartet of handsome daughters, always brought a delicious array of vegetables canned during the summer. My own favorite was a cold banana pudding—a guarded recipe of the ancient aunt who, despite her longevity, was still domestically energetic; to our sorrow she took the secret with her when she died in 1934, age one hundred and five (and it wasn’t age that lowered the curtain; she was attacked and trampled by a bull in a pasture).

  Miss Sook was ruminating on these matters while my mind wandered through a maze as melancholy as the wet twilight. Suddenly I heard her knuckles rap the kitchen table: “Buddy!”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t listened to one word.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I figure we’ll need five turkeys this year. When I spoke to Uncle B. about it, he said he wanted you to kill them. Dress them, too.”

  “But why?”

  “He says a boy ought to know how to do things like that.”

  Slaughtering was Uncle B.’s job. It was an ordeal for me to watch him butcher a hog or even wring a chicken’s neck. My friend felt the same way; neither of us could abide any violence bloodier than swatting flies, so I was taken aback at her casual relaying of this command.

  “Well, I won’t.”

  Now she smiled. “Of course you won’t. I’ll get Bubber or some other colored boy. Pay him a nickel. But,” she said, her tone descending conspiratorially, “we’ll let Uncle B. believe it was you. Then he’ll be pleased and stop saying it’s such a bad thing.”

  “What’s a bad thing?”

  “Our always being together. He says you ought to have other friends, boys your own age. Well, he’s right.”

  “I don’t want any other friend.”

  “Hush, Buddy. Now hush. You’ve been real good to me. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Just become an old crab. But I want to see you happy, Buddy. Strong, able to go out in the world. And you’re never going to until you come to terms with people like Odd Henderson and turn th
em into friends.”

  “Him! He’s the last friend in the world I want.”

  “Please, Buddy—invite that boy here for Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Though the pair of us occasionally quibbled, we never quarreled. At first I was unable to believe she meant her request as something more than a sample of poor-taste humor; but then, seeing that she was serious, I realized, with bewilderment, that we were edging toward a falling-out.

  “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am, Buddy. Truly.”

  “If you were, you couldn’t think up a thing like that. Odd Henderson hates me. He’s my enemy.”

  “He can’t hate you. He doesn’t know you.”

  “Well, I hate him.”

  “Because you don’t know him. That’s all I ask. The chance for you to know each other a little. Then I think this trouble will stop. And maybe you’re right, Buddy, maybe you boys won’t ever be friends. But I doubt that he’d pick on you any more.”

  “You don’t understand. You’ve never hated anybody.”

  “No, I never have. We’re allotted just so much time on earth, and I wouldn’t want the Lord to see me wasting mine in any such manner.”

  “I won’t do it. He’d think I was crazy. And I would be.”

  The rain had let up, leaving a silence that lengthened miserably. My friend’s clear eyes contemplated me as though I were a Rook card she was deciding how to play; she maneuvered a salt-pepper lock of hair off her forehead and sighed. “Then I will. Tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll put on my hat and pay a call on Molly Henderson.” This statement certified her determination, for I’d never known Miss Sook to plan a call on anyone, not only because she was entirely without social talent, but also because she was too modest to presume a welcome. “I don’t suppose there will be much Thanksgiving in their house. Probably Molly would be very pleased to have Odd sit down with us. Oh, I know Uncle B. would never permit it, but the nice thing to do is invite them all.”

  My laughter woke Queenie; and after a surprised instant, my friend laughed too. Her cheeks pinked and a light flared in her eyes; rising, she hugged me and said, “Oh, Buddy, I knew you’d forgive me and recognize there was some sense to my notion.”

  She was mistaken. My merriment had other origins. Two. One was the picture of Uncle B. carving turkey for all those cantankerous Hendersons. The second was: It had occurred to me that I had no cause for alarm; Miss Sook might extend the invitation and Odd’s mother might accept it in his behalf; but Odd wouldn’t show up in a million years.

  He would be too proud. For instance, throughout the Depression years, our school distributed free milk and sandwiches to all children whose families were too poor to provide them with a lunch box. But Odd, emaciated as he was, refused to have anything to do with these handouts; he’d wander off by himself and devour a pocketful of peanuts or gnaw a large raw turnip. This kind of pride was characteristic of the Henderson breed: they might steal, gouge the gold out of a dead man’s teeth, but they would never accept a gift offered openly, for anything smacking of charity was offensive to them. Odd was sure to figure Miss Sook’s invitation as a charitable gesture; or see it—and not incorrectly—as a blackmailing stunt meant to make him ease up on me.

  I went to bed that night with a light heart, for I was certain my Thanksgiving would not be marred by the presence of such an unsuitable visitor.

  The next morning I had a bad cold, which was pleasant; it meant no school. It also meant I could have a fire in my room and cream-of-tomato soup and hours alone with Mr. Micawber and David Copperfield: the happiest of stayabeds. It was drizzling again; but true to her promise, my friend fetched her hat, a straw cartwheel decorated with weather-faded velvet roses, and set out for the Henderson home. “I won’t be but a minute,” she said. In fact, she was gone the better part of two hours. I couldn’t imagine Miss Sook sustaining so long a conversation except with me or herself (she talked to herself often, a habit of sane persons of a solitary nature); and when she returned, she did seem drained.

  Still wearing her hat and an old loose raincoat, she slipped a thermometer in my mouth, then sat at the foot of the bed. “I like her,” she said firmly. “I always have liked Molly Henderson. She does all she can, and the house was clean as Bob Spencer’s fingernails”—Bob Spencer being a Baptist minister famed for his hygienic gleam—“but bitter cold. With a tin roof and the wind right in the room and not a scrap of fire in the fireplace. She offered me refreshment, and I surely would have welcomed a cup of coffee, but I said no. Because I don’t expect there was any coffee on the premises. Or sugar.

  “It made me feel ashamed, Buddy. It hurts me all the way down to see somebody struggling like Molly. Never able to see a clear day. I don’t say people should have everything they want. Though, come to think of it, I don’t see what’s wrong with that, either. You ought to have a bike to ride, and why shouldn’t Queenie have a beef bone every day? Yes, now it’s come to me, now I understand: We really all of us ought to have everything we want. I’ll bet you a dime that’s what the Lord intends. And when all around us we see people who can’t satisfy the plainest needs, I feel ashamed. Oh, not of myself, because who am I, an old nobody who never owned a mite; if I hadn’t had a family to pay my way, I’d have starved or been sent to the County Home. The shame I feel is for all of us who have anything extra when other people have nothing.

  “I mentioned to Molly how we had more quilts here than we could ever use—there’s a trunk of scrap quilts in the attic, the ones I made when I was a girl and couldn’t go outdoors much. But she cut me off, said the Hendersons were doing just fine, thank you, and the only thing they wanted was Dad to be set free and sent home to his people. ‘Miss Sook,’ she told me, ‘Dad is a good husband, no matter what else he might be.’ Meanwhile, she has her children to care for.

  “And, Buddy, you must be wrong about her boy Odd. At least partially. Molly says he’s a great help to her and a great comfort. Never complains, regardless of how many chores she gives him. Says he can sing good as you hear on the radio, and when the younger children start raising a ruckus, he can quiet them down by singing to them. Bless us,” she lamented, retrieving the thermometer, “all we can do for people like Molly is respect them and remember them in our prayers.”

  The thermometer had kept me silent; now I demanded, “But what about the invitation?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, scowling at the scarlet thread in the glass, “I think these eyes are giving out. At my age, a body starts to look around very closely. So you’ll remember how cobwebs really looked. But to answer your question, Molly was happy to hear you thought enough of Odd to ask him over for Thanksgiving. And,” she continued, ignoring my groan, “she said she was sure he’d be tickled to come. Your temperature is just over the hundred mark. I guess you can count on staying home tomorrow. That ought to bring smiles! Let’s see you smile, Buddy.”

  As it happened, I was smiling a good deal during the next few days prior to the big feast, for my cold had advanced to croup and I was out of school the entire period. I had no contact with Odd Henderson and therefore could not personally ascertain his reaction to the invitation; but I imagined it must have made him laugh first and spit next. The prospect of his actually appearing didn’t worry me; it was as farfetched a possibility as Queenie snarling at me or Miss Sook betraying my trust in her.

  Yet Odd remained a presence, a redheaded silhouette on the threshold of my cheerfulness. Still, I was tantalized by the description his mother had provided; I wondered if it was true he had another side, that somewhere underneath the evil a speck of humaneness existed. But that was impossible! Anybody who believed so would leave their house unlocked when the gypsies came to town. All you had to do was look at him.

  Miss Sook was aware that my croup was not as severe as I pretended, and so in the mornings, when the others had absented themselves—Uncle B. to his farms and the sisters to their dry-goods store—she tolerated my getting out of bed and even let me
assist in the springlike housecleaning that always preceded the Thanksgiving assembly. There was such a lot to do, enough for a dozen hands. We polished the parlor furniture, the piano, the black curio cabinet (which contained only a fragment of Stone Mountain the sisters had brought back from a business trip to Atlanta), the formal walnut rockers and florid Biedermeier pieces—rubbed them with lemon-scented wax until the place was shiny as lemon skin and smelled like a citrus grove. Curtains were laundered and rehung, pillows punched, rugs beaten; wherever one glanced, dust motes and tiny feathers drifted in the sparkling November light sifting through the tall rooms. Poor Queenie was relegated to the kitchen, for fear she might leave a stray hair, perhaps a flea, in the more dignified areas of the house.

  The most delicate task was preparing the napkins and tablecloths that would decorate the dining room. The linen had belonged to my friend’s mother, who had received it as a wedding gift; though it had been used only once or twice a year, say two hundred times in the past eighty years, nevertheless it was eighty years old, and mended patches and freckled discolorations were apparent. Probably it had not been a fine material to begin with, but Miss Sook treated it as though it had been woven by golden hands on heavenly looms: “My mother said, ‘The day may come when all we can offer is well water and cold cornbread, but at least we’ll be able to serve it on a table set with proper linen.’ ”

  At night, after the day’s dashing about and when the rest of the house was dark, one feeble lamp burned late while my friend, propped in bed with napkins massed on her lap, repaired blemishes and tears with thread and needle, her forehead crumpled, her eyes cruelly squeezed, yet illuminated by the fatigued rapture of a pilgrim approaching an altar at journeys end.