A boy's perspective before Katrina

Pass Christian the summer before Katrina, a 15 year old boy’s perspective from his diary as I imagine being back there.

Talking with my Grandmother

There’s s a knock downstairs and the sound of footsteps, a door slams. Is it Cook bringing in fresh crabs for dinner? A yell.  Sound of a woman’s voice in the bedroom below and yes on the mantle the clock chimes high low middle gong, High low middle gong.

 

Grandma looks wearily at me, rings a silver angel bell for a refresher on her drink. It’s an old fashioned with a cherry, bourbon diet coke. She rings again, impatient, eyes slits, a drop of sweat on her lip. I see an envelope on the table, the shape a square; it’s my report card. If only I could get to it.

Cook comes up the rear elevator and sounds of a crab basket dropped on a counter, the slow sizzle of a pot of water boiling, smell of fish spices. If I can just get to that envelope and slip it under the People magazine, or the Yachting or the Architectural Digest. Grandma takes her refresher drink, adjusts the thin monogrammed cocktail napkin under it.

“How was school?” she says.

I look down at the gentle rose and white silk fabric on the side chair. Grandma is on the large beige sofa behind her a pregnant girl 14 puts ice in the glasses.

“School is. . .” A noise downstairs of a barefooted woman slipping inside a bedroom door. Reminds me of Mama. “School is OK. I had a dream about Mama last night.”

“Oh lets not go down that dead alley.” Grandma rolls her eyes.

“But I think it’s a sign.” Another strange sound of footsteps below and a woman opening and closing a door. I dreamt Mama had a lump like before. Only this time it was malignant. And I read this article that says one out of four women get breast cancer.”

Grandma stirs her old fashioned with a sizzle stick.” She uses different colored glass ones at parties to make sure people got the right drink. “This is not table conversation, Bunky,” she said.

“We’re not eating.  . . Anyway, in the dream Mama tells me she’s gone to Paris because that’s where the best surgeons are and she didn’t tell me because her chances aren’t good.  Oh gosh. Is it true? Is Mama sick. Will she die?”

Cook swoops in with some fresh salted pecans he has made this week. Grandma sucks on her swizzle stick and rolls her eyes. She doesn’t want the help to overhear anything private.

“Oh Grandma, I’m so worried about Mama. I’m sure she is dead or dying or maybe in the dream she is trying to warn me that I’m sick. I have a wart on my arm and it’s getting bigger.

“Stop that this minute.” Grandma rings the angel bell. Cook’s wife ducks in a light high yellow woman and bring s ice for Grandma’s drink. I make it over to the table and rearrange the Vogue magazine over the Oprah.  Grandma has all types of subscriptions on the table and below it on the shelf to be sure that people find something they want. I knock over the Town and Country.

 “And leave my magazines alone. I want to talk about your grades.”

A sizzle and a pop from the kitchen, and Cook’s voice booms,” You wanted it with them crabs.” The fourteen year old goes back to the kitchen with a pitcher.

“Grandma I am worried Ma is sick or trying to reach me.”

“You should be worried about your grades. Your mother is a self-centered narcissist. It’s hard to believe that I bore her. Running off to visit the Homes of the Romantic Poets. I can’t believe I inspired all this renting that long seminar tour on the Louvre and on the—Bunky I am sorry to say your mother isn’t thinking of you but she is very well.”

“But in my dream I still see her face so real so like she’s in the other room. Her face is huge and her lips move but I can’t tell what she is saying. 

“Oh for god’s sake Bunky. Find out what’s holding up lunch.

The phone blares. It’s a cancellation. Grandma slams it down.

A door opens downstairs and in the back an elevator clangs up. “Yes. I got the paper,” Clifford yells out.  “Yes.”

I take a deep breath. Pull a slip of paper out my pocket, I try to read it. It’s the dream yes I wrote it down.

I read it to Grandma, “In the dream, Mama is dead it’s her funeral, but I choose not to go.  I didn’t want to. I couldn’t see her.”

“Death what’s done. There’s no more dying then, “ Grandma says, “Shakespeare. We all worry about the d word.” She squeezes her glass. Then her eyes close for a moment.

“What you thinking Grandma?  Do you think this will be a bad summer?” Noises downstairs the shutting of a door.

“You’d think the new maid could be quieter. The working class today is loud. They speak loud move loud as if by doing so they can remind us that they are alive. Gentleness, Gentleness is all.“

“Mama was gentle. But then you walked all over her,” I say quietly.

“What a nasty little boy you are. I don’t know why I took you in. Your father cancels lunch after I’ve gone to all this effort.” Grandma looks at her watch, “He says he has car trouble an hour after the face. The green mantle clock chimes again--Ding dong ding dong, ding dong ding dong dong dong dong.  Clifford brings me a coke from the kitchen with a cherry and lemon like I like. The coke just ripples down my throat.

He hangs Grandma the paper and says, “You still waiting for your son for dinner.”

“Five more minutes,” she says.

Clifford puts the paper on the table over the Vogue covering my report card envelope.

The headlines read, “Newscasters predict a big hurricane is due?”

Grandma reads the headlines, gulps some more old fashioned, cracks down a pecan. There’s so many gaps between speaking. I tighten my shoe lace, unplug an ear, look at the floor. I pick at the wart on my arm. 

Grandma gets up to go to the table. Maybe I can sneak the report card away if a run off with a magazine and say I have to wash my hands. I close in on the report card and see under the head lines article, “Women’s Breast Cancer on the Rise.”