South of Broad (41 page)

But it was Starla Whitehead’s eyes that caught and held my attention. Her gaze was straight and direct and perfect. She would have to adjust to walking the world as a beauty, and I could not have been more proud. Sheba began the round of applause and the rest of us joined in, even my mother. Starla’s dark eyes dazzled, and her steady, brown gaze seemed able to register passion or rage with equal forcefulness. Between the twins’ constant obsession with high drama and my own need to make corrections in a flawed and dangerous world, we had turned a wallflower into a knockout.

“Have you ever seen such a precious girl in your life?” Sheba asked. “She’s a sight for horny eyes. Oh, excuse me, Dr. King, Mr. King! I got carried away.”

My mother turned an icy stare on her, leaving my father to try to make amends. “All you kids have to stay for dinner. Leo and I’ll rustle up some vittles.”

“Vittles?” my mother asked with disdain.

“Food,” my father said. “In cowboy movies, they call it vittles.”

“I abhor cowboy movies,” she said, and returned to her room.

There was moonlight on the water as we ate our meal by the small acreage of marsh that cleaved to our yard. The moon had a silken, electric effect on the Ashley River, prowling through the tides like something active and with a story to tell. It was a happy meal, one of the happiest I could ever remember. When my father said grace that night, he prayed for the boys in Vietnam and for Harrington Canon’s recovery. He thanked God for making Starla’s operation so successful, and he thanked Him for the success of the football team. It was a comprehensive prayer, and he even thanked God for making me his son and for finding Lindsay Weaver as his wife. “Ah, yes, Lord, and last, before I forget, thanks for the vittles we’re about to enjoy.”

As he finished, we heard the train coming up the Ashley River, going straight through the Citadel campus. Ike said, “I’ve grown up with the sound of that train.”

“Trains have always given me hope,” Sheba said. “That one especially.”

“Why that one?” Betty asked.

“Because that’s the train that’s going to take me into a new life,” Sheba said. “That’s the train that’s taking me west one of these days. To Hollywood.”

“But that train is heading due north, sugar,” my father said.

“No, no. You’re wrong, Mr. King,” Sheba said, closing her eyes. “It’s heading for the Pacific. It’s moving west.”

“I’ll never make you a scientist,” Father said, smiling.

“You don’t have to,” Sheba said. “I’m already an actress.”

CHAPTER 21
Prayer Book for the Wilderness

I
t was almost midnight when I walked down the institutional, crepuscular halls of the Medical University looking for room 1004, where the night attendant told me Harrington Canon had been assigned. My tennis shoes made rodentlike squeaks as I neared the nurses’ station, announcing my presence as effectively as though I had an agitated magpie squawking on my shoulder. Feeling self-conscious enough, I felt yet more mortification as I observed the curiosity of every night nurse on duty at my noisy approach.

“Yes, young man?” one nurse asked, wearing a name tag that identified her as Verga.

“I’d like to look in on Mr. Canon,” I said. “He doesn’t have much family, and I wanted him to know he has some people looking out for him.”

“Are you Leo King?” she said, going over a list.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re the only one he has on his visitors’ list,” she said.

“His family’s all in nursing homes,” I said. “They are too infirm to visit.”

“I see. And your relationship to Mr. Canon?”

“I help out in his antique store on King Street,” I said. “Ever been to it?”

“I’m a nurse, not a millionaire,” she said. Some of the faceless nurses looming over their charts laughed in appreciation.

“Is Mr. Canon going to be all right?” I asked. “It’s nothing serious, is it?”

“Dr. Ray will examine him tomorrow,” the nurse replied. “We’ll know a lot more after that.”

“What is Dr. Ray’s specialty?” I asked.

“Oncology,” she answered.

I couldn’t believe a four-syllable word had escaped inclusion in my mother’s indefatigable five-word-a-day vocabulary list, and this one had a barbed, ominous sound. “I don’t know what that means, ma’am.”

“Cancer,” she said, and I was faced with the horrifying word at last. “He’s in that room over there. We’ve got him medicated, but he’s been restless all night.”

It took several moments for my eyes to adjust to the prisonlike darkness when I peeked into his room.

“Who’re you staring at like I was some kind of polecat, boy?”

“I thought you’d be asleep, Mr. Canon. I thought they’d give you something to help you sleep.”

“I’m too worried to sleep.”

“What’re you worried about?”

“Just the little things. Incontinence, dementia, paralysis, unbearable pain, and then death itself.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll all come in good time.”

“You’re just the person I don’t need to see,” he said. “Why did it take you so long to get up here?”

“I went back over to your house to feed your cats.”

“They’ll be fat as hogs if you stuff their guts twice a day.”

“I didn’t know. I’ve never owned a pet,” I said. “My mother’s allergic to animal fur.”

“Once a day is sufficient,” he said.

“I’ll take care of it,” I promised.

“A housekeeper will need to be hired,” Mr. Canon said. “I left that four-poster bed a mess, I’m afraid. I was filled with shame that those sweet boys in the ambulance had to encounter me in such a situation.”

“Those guys’ve seen everything,” I said. “That’s what my father told me as we were cleaning up your place.”

“You cleaned up?”

“It’s good as new. We couldn’t save the sheets, but we saved everything else. We dusted, we polished, we cleaned. We made a good team. We even brought flowers in from the gardens.”

“Thank you, rapscallion,” he said. “Please thank your daddy for me. Neither of you were required to do it.”

“My father said we were the only two people in a position to do anything. You were unconscious and fighting to live.”

“I don’t remember a thing about it,” he admitted.

Nurse Verga stuck her head into the room. “Is this boy bothering you, Mr. Canon? We can send him on his way.”

“You and your incompetent cheerleading squad of nurses are what’s really bothering me,” Mr. Canon grumbled. “This boy just fed my cats and cleaned my house. Why am I not asleep? Are you feeding me placebos instead of using effective drugs of sufficient potency?”

“It’s time for a shot that will put you out for the night,” she said. “I can get rid of the boy.”

“I need him for another couple of minutes,” Mr. Canon said. “Leo, I’ll need you to place a call to my lawyer, Cleveland Winters, tomorrow. I’ve got some important decisions to make, and I’ll need to make them in a hurry.”

“The doctor will see you in the morning,” I said. “He’ll fix you up fine. You’ll be back home in no time.”

“That’s how it works in books and movies,” Mr. Canon said. “But something broke in me this morning. Something broke deep inside me, and whatever it was is going to kill me. Get that pussyfooting look off your face. I’m going to make up a long list of things for you to do. Customers to call. Scoundrels with accounts receivable, and other dealers who have things I own on consignment. I’m going to donate all my books to the Charleston Library. I need to talk to a curator at the Gibbes Museum of Art. You’ll need to call the rector of St. Michael’s, so he can come give me the last rites. I’d like you to bring me the Book of Common Prayer that’s in the first drawer of my bedside table. My great-grandfather Canon was carrying it when he went down at the Battle of the Wilderness.”

“No,” I said, devastated. “I won’t do it. I refuse to accept this. Dr. Ray is going to take care of all this tomorrow. You’ll see. We’ll be laughing about this tomorrow night. I’ll tease you about this conversation for the next thirty years.”

“Leo, Leo, I’ve told no one this. I’m not close enough to anyone to tell them. I chose a reclusive life because it seemed to fit me best. I was a bitter disappointment to both my mother and father. An only child never outgrows that. That’s a wound that suppurates through the years; there’s no healing, and not even time can touch it. I’ve told no one in Charleston, not even my beloved rector or my lawyer: I was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago. I’ll never leave this hospital.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “Giving up’s the worst thing you can do!”

“What in the hell am I listening to you for, Mr. Nobody? You’ve never even had a head cold.”

“But I know all about giving up.”

“Yes, I sometimes forget about your bouts with insanity,” he said. “It gave me great pause before I took a lunatic into my store. But my Charleston values overcame my fears of the asylum.”

“That there are saints like you who walk among us.”

“You should be getting on home now,” he said. I could see he was tiring.

“I’m staying here with you tonight,” I said. “I’m sleeping in this chair.”

“Preposterous! I’ll not have it.”

“My mother and father don’t think you should be alone. At least for the first night.”

“I’ve been alone my whole life,” he said. “I’ll make a deal with you: go sleep in your own bed tonight. But bring me my newspaper on your way to school in the morning.”

“You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

Mr. Canon exploded, “What must I do? Send up a smoke signal? You need to be home with your family, and I need to be alone with my thoughts.”

“Call me in the middle of the night if you need me,” I said. “I’m just ten minutes away.”

“I snore,” he said.

“So what?”

“It’s such a low-class thing to do, snoring. Pipe fitters snore, used-car salesmen snore, welders snore, union members snore. Charleston aristocrats shouldn’t snore. It seems unforgivable for a man of my stature to snore.”

“The nurses were talking about it when I asked to visit,” I said.

“What did those fishwives and scoundrels say?” he demanded.

“Said you were noisier than a volcano. Noisier than rain on a tin roof.”

“I’ll have their jobs,” he stated, offended that his private life had been the subject of vile gossip. “Those magpies’ll be sorry they ever heard the name of Harrington Canon.”

There was a rattling sound at the door, and Nurse Verga brought a tray in with a small paper bonnet filled with pills and a serious-looking syringe. I knew that Mr. Canon was not a big fan of shots, so I was not surprised when he wailed, “My God, that shot could put a blue whale to sleep!”

“Probably,” she said. “And it’ll certainly put you to sleep.”

“Do you know who to call, boy?” he asked.

“Your lawyer, your rector, someone at the Charleston Library, a representative at the Gibbes Museum of Art. Feed your cats.”

“Once a day. Not twice. Change their kitty litter.”

“Bring you your Book of Common Prayer that your great-grandfather carried with him into the Battle of the Wilderness.”

“That’s all I can think of now. I’m exhausted to the bones.”

The medicine acted fast, and Harrington Canon was asleep in a matter of seconds with his hand in mine. Despite his insistence, I slept in a chair beside his bed. Of course, he snored throughout the night, a soft funny growling noise. Once, he woke and asked for a glass of ice water, which I gave to him, holding his head in my hand. At four-thirty in the morning, Nurse Verga woke me for my paper route, as I’d asked. I kissed Mr. Canon on the forehead as I whispered to him good morning and good-bye. I was lucky to have met him, and I knew it. I had many duties to perform for him that morning.

T
he following Friday, at the end of my first-period French class, a language I spoke with no facility and wrote in just a notch above idiocy, a message came from the principal’s office. I went to my mother’s severe bailiwick in the front hall. I tried to think of what I might have done to raise her ire, but could come up with nothing.

My mother was writing, treating the document with the same significance as though she were penning the final words of the Magna Carta. It was a very nunlike gesture of intimidation. When she finally spoke, she still did not interrupt her writing.

“Harrington Canon died this morning, Leo, not long after you left him. They think he had a heart attack. So he went fast and died in peace. His lawyer, Cleveland Winters, called and said you’re the head pallbearer. Mr. Canon put it in his will that he wanted you to choose the other five pallbearers.”

I lay my head on my mother’s desk and began weeping softly.

My mother sniffed with displeasure. “Don’t take it so hard, Leo. You knew he had to die. Everybody does someday.”

Ignoring her, I continued to cry.

Finally she said, “I found him to be a most pretentious, unpleasant man.”

“He was nice to me, Mother,” I said. “At a time when not many people were.”

“You made your own bed there, mister.”

“So you’ve reminded me a few million times.”

“Try not to be disrespectful in your grief,” she said. “Mr. Canon was famous for being penurious. You worked for years for him without wages. He enjoyed slave labor.”

“Why is it so disappointing to you when someone seems to like me? Why does it make you so angry?”

“You’re talking nonsense, son.”

“I don’t think so, Lindsay.” I heard my father’s voice as he entered the door behind me. “So there’s nothing our sweet boy can do to please you?”

“My standards might be higher than yours are, Jasper,” she said. “My expectations for Leo are exacting, and I’m not ashamed of that.”

“Or they might be too high for anyone to achieve,” he said.

“He hasn’t been a perfect son,” she said. “Even you can admit that.”

“I never wanted a perfect son,” he said. “A human one was good enough for me.”

“Harrington Canon was a crank and a leech on Leo,” my mother said. “I don’t see why his death merits such grief.”

I cried out, “Mr. Canon was a sweetheart to me, Mother. You had to be around him awhile to understand him.”

“I think there might have been something prurient in his interest in you.”

“You mean you thought Mr. Canon wanted to screw me?” I asked, as incredulous as I had ever been in my life.

“You’ll not use such language in the principal’s office,” she snapped.

“That’s what the principal implied.”

“She certainly did,” my father agreed.

“I’ve always loathed old degenerates,” Mother said.

“Mr. Canon was a gentleman,” my father said. “And we have no reason to believe he was a degenerate.”

“You just became one of his pallbearers,” I said.

“A high honor, son,” he said.

That same afternoon, after a grueling football practice, I rode my bicycle down Broad Street in a crisp darkness that carried the first signature of a cold winter to come. The wind was delicious on my face with the air as life-giving as a salt lick. I locked my bike around a parking meter and then entered the law offices of Ravenel, Jones, Winters, and Day. It was after hours, but Cleveland Winters had sent word that he would be working late that evening and needed to have a word with me.

His office was on the third floor of an antebellum mansion, and it had that harmonious, leathery smell that all the white-shoe law firms seemed to exude. Mr. Winters was a splendid example of a Charleston aristocrat, with a shock of thick, white hair and the serene, regal bearing of a prince of this watery Low Country realm.

“Hey, Leo,” he said, smiling, as I walked into his office. “Let me finish reading this document, and I’ll be right with you.”

When he finally looked up and closed his Waterman pen, I said, “I bet you bought this desk from Mr. Canon.”

“Harrington claimed I stole this desk from him over forty years ago,” Mr. Winters said. “But actually, my parents bought it for me when I graduated from law school. I think they paid Harrington a hundred dollars for it.”

“They did steal it,” I said. “I bet it would go for four or five thousand in today’s market.”

“So Harrington taught you some things about antiques?” Mr. Winters asked.

“He told me he taught me everything he knew,” I said. “But that’s not even close to being true. Mr. Canon was a walking encyclopedia on antiques. I got to really like him.”

“He felt the same,” he said. “Do you know why I called you down here tonight, Leo?”

“I figured you wanted to talk to me about pallbearers,” I said.

“No, I called you to my office for a very different reason. I am the sole executor of Harrington’s will. He wants an auction company in Columbia to auction off the merchandise in his store. He would like you to take inventory of everything in the store and compare it with the auction company’s inventory.”