One Mississippi Read online

  Stepping into the Brant & Church Tuxedo Company we were greeted by a loud industrial buzzer like prisoners entering a cellblock. Tim hastened back to shut the door. A beefy little man popped up among the jackets. “Gentlemen! In the market for formal wear?” I noted the sweat circles under his arms. “So what’s the occasion — let me guess. School dance?”

  “Not just a dance,” Tim said. “The Junior-Senior Prom.”

  “Absolutely. So what sort of look did you fellas have in mind?”

  On all sides stood bronze-colored mannequin guys with molded hair and wrists tilted just so, wearing tuxes in a rainbow of colors. “I thought tuxedos were black,” I said. Tim murmured agreement.

  “Oh no, gentlemen, welcome to 1973!” the man said. “Black is more or less only worn by old fogeys like myself these days. The young fellas today like to put a little more pizzazz in their act, like for instance this beauty, the Colonial Gent in Rich Burgundy. Isn’t that just tremendous?” It put me in mind of a bellhop. “Or the more adventurous guys are going for the Sophisticated Squire in Sky Blue or Forest Green, both extremely popular this year.”

  “You don’t have any black tuxes?” I said.

  The man smiled. “Tell me your name again?”

  “His name is Durwood,” said Tim.

  “Okay, Durwood, let’s try it from another angle. What color will the lady be wearing?”

  I shrugged. “How should I know?”

  “Pink.” Tim spoke with authority. “Dianne’s wearing pink and Debbie’s wearing cream.”

  I gaped at him. “How do you know that?”

  “I asked.”

  Who knew to ask the color of their dresses? Was there a Prom Manual they’d handed out to everyone but me?

  “Definitely blue is the way to go alongside either pink or cream,” the salesman said. “Can’t go wrong with blue, either the Sky Blue or the Royal Blue. I would go with the Sky Blue, myself. Much more pizzazz.”

  “I think the Royal Blue,” Tim said. “The other one is too bright.”

  “But see, you’re viewing this fabric under showroom lighting conditions. It’ll be ten times darker than this at your dance. That blue will look just elegant. Trust me. I’ve been in this business thirty-two years.”

  He measured us. We picked out patent-leather shoes and frilly-front shirts and bat-wing bow ties, suspenders, cuff links, spats, wrist corsages for “the ladies.” It was all wildly expensive, all the money our parents had given us and some of our own, but we paid it and got out of there as fast as we could.

  On prom day when we came to collect our tuxedos, they were a good deal lighter blue than we expected. We distinctly remembered asking for the Royal Blue, whereas these tuxedos were . . . Sky Blue is what they were. Sky Blue with swirly decorations on the lapels, black satin stripes down the pantslegs. The salesman was nowhere in sight, and the crabby woman at the register said take it or leave it, if you leave it we keep your deposit, come on boys I ain’t got all day.

  We carried our Sky Blue tuxes in their plastic shrouds to the car. Tim had convinced his father to loan us his gleaming new Buick Riviera for the evening, with injunctions of murder if we put a single scratch on it. We hung the tuxedos carefully on the coat hooks in back.

  Tim eased into the driver’s seat. “That color is making me ill.”

  “Oh come on, they’re not that bad. The guy said Sky Blue is very popular this year.”

  “The guy was a goddamn idiot.” Tim groaned. “We’re gonna look like . . . like two O’Jays! Like a couple of Pips!”

  “Maybe people will think we’re trying to be funny.”

  “Oh sure. Ha ha. Great joke.” He scowled. “This is gonna be a hell of a night. I’m not going.”

  “You sure as hell are,” I said. “You dragged me into this. I’ve already spent forty-eight dollars! Now snap out of it and let’s get this car cleaned up.”

  For an hour we scrubbed and vacuumed and polished and waxed and sprayed Mr. Cousins’s Riviera full of Glade Summer Meadow, a scent so realistic it made me sneeze like cut grass.

  Tim drove me out to Buena Vista and waited in our driveway while I went in to shower and put on my tux. Mom asked why Tim didn’t come in. I didn’t want to tell her that he was creeped out by the sight of old Uncle Jacko. I just said he was nervous about leaving his dad’s new car alone for two minutes.

  “Well, that’s strange. He’s a strange boy. The car is perfectly safe in the driveway.” Mom craned to see out the window. “Are y’all taking these girls out to dinner beforehand?”

  “We thought we’d go to the HoJo. It’s not that far from the Holiday Inn, and it’s not too expensive.” For weeks the junior and senior girls had been amassing crepe paper and ribbon to transform the Holiday Inn Medical Center ballroom into “A Night of a Thousand and One Stars.” Some of our classmates had made reservations at ritzy restaurants like Primo’s and La Parisienne, but Tim and I had decided, why waste a lot of money on food when the dance was the big deal anyway?

  “Don’t you think you’ll be a little dressy for Howard Johnson’s?” Mom said. “Is that your tuxedo? Let me see! Oh honey, look! It’s so blue.”

  “You think it’s too blue?”

  “Oh no. You know I like blue. Just, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite that blue.”

  “It’s called the Sophisticated Squire. It’s supposed to be real popular this year.”

  “I’m sure it is,” she said. “Timmy’s waiting, now. Run put it on. I’ll put the film in the camera.”

  I snapped and suspendered myself into the tux, and crept back out to the family room. I felt like a frilly Sky Blue Popsicle. “Don’t you look fancy!” Mom snapped six pictures, pow pow pow, filling the room with white stars. “My little baby all grown up and going to his big dance! Let’s go show Jacko, he’ll love seeing you all duded up.”

  Janie ran through the room, took one look at me, and burst out laughing.

  “Mom, I gotta go,” I said.

  “Just one minute. It will mean so much to Jacko.”

  She hurried out past the kitchen. I heard the drum of wheels as she rolled Jacko by the shoulders through the kitchen.

  Jacko was my great-uncle, Mom’s uncle. Her mother’s brother. He was seventy years old and bald and scary-looking, with crooked white hairs sprouting from a Snuffy Smith nose. His legs were useless, a child’s legs, shriveled and folded beneath him from polio when he was a baby. He had never walked a step, never been to school. All his friends back in Alabama were country black people, and he talked just like them. He wore denim shirtdresses because there were no pants to fit those legs. He got around our house by pushing himself on his “stroller,” a little padded platform with roller skate wheels.

  When I was little and someone plunked me on the floor beside him, Jacko liked to sneak out his hand and pinch my leg to see me cry.

  Mom had wanted to move to Mississippi so she could be closer to Granny and Jacko in Alabama. The first December after we moved, Granny died, and Jacko came to live with us.

  “Look at ol’ Danums!” he crowed. “Where you gwine off to, boy?”

  “Hey, Jacko. Big dance for our school tonight.”

  He cackled. “Like a big ol’ fat bluebird.”

  Mom beamed. “Danny’s got a date with a girl, Jacko. Don’t he look handsome?”

  “Biggest fat old bluebird I ever saw,” said Jacko.

  “Mom, let me go.”

  “Go on then. Be careful. Don’t stay out too late. Oh, and Daniel ––” I let her give me one more hug. “You be nice to that girl. Be a gentleman, you hear me?”

  “Don’t be try and kiss ’em,” Jacko said. “She slap you upside the head.”

  I fled outside to find Tim pacing the driveway. “Jesus, I thought you would never —” He stopped to take in the sight of me.

  “Well?” I braced myself.

  “Honest opinion?” He studied me. “Not as bad as I thought. No, really. It’s okay.”

  “Jack
o says I look like a big fat bluebird.”

  “What did your mom say?”

  “She said I was handsome.”

  “You know what?” Tim cocked open his door. “I believe she is right, you ol’ dawg.”

  I grinned and got in the car. We rode fast into town with the windows down, the Carpenters on the radio, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.” It was sweet to be alive and sixteen and going to the prom. Who cared if my tux was Sky Blue? The world seemed to stretch out before the long, long hood of Tim’s father’s Buick. Every hill and molehill of Mississippi was glowing in the soft light of an April evening.

  Maybe my time as a brain/loser was ending and my new life was about to start. I was only a junior. There was still time to become popular, go on dates with real girls, rise above the brain/loser crowd, start having the kind of fun you’re supposed to have in high school.

  Going over to Tim’s always reminded me that his folks had more money than mine. Their house was on the best street in Lake Forest. It was a little nicer and so much cleaner than other houses. His mother was spooky that way — you never saw her cleaning, but her house was so clean it made your teeth hurt. And Patsy Cousins was just as cheerful and sparkly as her kitchen. While Tim went to shower, she offered me a Coke and a seat at the bar with a view of that immaculate kitchen.

  “You kids are going to have a grand time. I’ll never forget my own prom. That’s the night I first fell in love with Timmy’s father. Just like in the movies.”

  “Mr. Cousins was your date for the prom?”

  “Oh no, I went with some other boy — I forget his name.” Mrs. Cousins batted her eyes. “Just a boy who asked me. But then I saw Timmy’s father dancing with another girl, and our eyes met across a crowded room . . . it was so romantic. They were playing ‘Que Será, Será.’ Doris Day. That song still makes me all mushy.”

  I wished Tim would hurry.

  Mrs. Cousins leaned across the bar with a confidential air. “Tell me something, Danny. Are you and Dianne going steady?”

  “Oh, no ma’am. Nuh-uh.”

  “I wish Tim would find his special someone,” she said. “He’s so shy around girls! I’m delighted you finally talked him into going tonight. I tried and tried to get him interested in the prom, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “He’s the one who talked me into it,” I said.

  She wrinkled her brow. “He did?”

  And here he came, a tall awkward Sky Blue Sophisticated Squire with curlicues on his lapels, just like me. I told him how great he looked. He let his mom do her hugging and picture-taking. She followed us out to the car with her bright happy chatter and stood snapping photos as we pulled away.

  “What did she say to you?” Tim said as soon as we were clear of the driveway.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did she talk about me?”

  “She said you’re shy around girls, and she’s glad I talked you into going to the prom.”

  “She should keep her fucking mouth shut,” Tim said.

  I’d never heard him use the word “fucking” that way. Especially referring to his mom. “She didn’t mean anything, Tim. She was just making conversation.”

  “Don’t tell me what she meant,” he snapped. “She’s my mother.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Jesus.”

  “I hate her,” he said. “She’s the whole reason I had to repeat the stupid ninth grade. My grades were fine, but she called them up and suggested they should keep me back! Can you believe that? She said I wasn’t ‘socially mature.’ Whatever the hell that means.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad. That way we got to be juniors together.”

  “Yeah, it worked out great for you.” He slung the Buick out onto Old Vicksburg Road. “You know, I really am not in the mood for this stupid-ass dance.”

  “Fine. Let’s just skip it,” I said. “Is the real reason you’re pissed off because we look like dorks, and we’re taking the two skaggiest girls in the whole school to the prom, and everybody’s gonna laugh at us for the rest of our lives?”

  “There are skaggier girls,” Tim said. “And anyway, seriously, didn’t you hear me say to the guy, ‘Royal Blue’?”

  “We can hang a sign around our necks that says ‘We Told the Guy Royal Blue.’ Hey, slow down. Don’t kill us on prom night, okay? Talk about a cliché.”

  “Where the hell is their stupid-ass house, anyway?” Tim said. “I’m all turned around.”

  “Make a right on Dorothy and supposedly it’s the third house on the left.”

  All the Minor subdivisions had curving streets named for the children of developers: Bethany Drive, Ronnie Lane, Mary Ellen Way. The Frillingers lived on Dorothy Drive in a house like Tim’s house, like our house — two-car garage on the right, bedrooms on the left, living room, family room, and kitchen in the middle. On the garage door, a bedsheet strung up as a banner:

  HAPPY PROM NITE DEBBIE AND DIANNE!!!

  WELCOME TIM & DANIEL!!!!

  And besides all the smiley faces, they had drawn little Jesus-fishes everywhere, and IXOYE, and flowers, and hearts. It looked like something a crazy person might do.

  Tim stopped the car with his headlights trained on the sheet. “Do you see this? Do you see how they spelled ‘nite’?”

  “I see.”

  “Dagwood, these people are crazy. What should we do? Should we leave?”

  “We can’t.”

  “Dagwood, they’ve got our names on their garage door.”

  “Oh God, I know. I know.”

  He switched off the engine. We grabbed the corsage boxes and slunk past the banner.

  The front door swung open and there stood Mr. Frillinger, white-haired and beaming like an overfriendly preacher, welcoming us in. “What handsome young gentlemen we have here tonight!” he boomed as if he wanted the neighbors to hear. “All decked out for a night on the town!” He ushered us back through the house to his private den. The house smelled of cigarettes and Pine-Sol. Down the hall we heard a girly getting-ready commotion.

  Mr. Frillinger’s den was crammed with Ole Miss plaques, pennants, and trophies. He waved us to a sofa draped with a Rebel flag. He asked our full names, ages, what our fathers did, and whether we liked Ole Miss football.

  Oh yes sir, we said. We sure did.

  His unnerving green eyes settled on me. “Well let me ask you this then, son, have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

  For a moment I was speechless. Then I managed to say, “Yes sir, I sure have.”

  “Good.” He turned on Tim. “And you?”

  “Oh yes sir, praise the Lord.”

  “Well since you boys are believers, you’ll know what I’m about to say is just between us men, and in keeping with the spirit of the Lord.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “My daughters,” he said, “are blessed vessels of the purest virginity. And I mean to see they make it straight through to marriage with their purity intact. Now don’t think I don’t know what can happen between young people — believe me, I know! Something touches something. Something rubs up against something. Next thing you know the Devil has you by the hand and he’s taking you straight to HELL!” The bang of his fist made a ceramic Rebel Colonel hop an inch off the coffee table. He steadied it with his other hand. “Now, I’m not threatening you boys, but I am deadly serious when I say that if either of my girls comes home tonight with one hair out of place — wellsir,” he said, laughing sadly, shaking his head, “I wouldn’t want to be you. Daniel Musgrove? What do you say?”

  My voice came out a chirp. “You don’t have to worry, sir.”

  “Good,” he said. “Tim Cousins?”

  “Your daughters are safe with us,” Tim said, twitching under the force of a postponed explosion.

  Thank God here came Debbie, Dianne, and their mother swirling up the hall all a-chatter, and Mr. Frillinger was forced to let us go. The girls squealed in pleasure at the sight of us, t
hey said our tuxes were cool, we were sooo incredibly handsome, who on earth except Tim and me would be avant-garde and hip enough to wear Sky Blue tuxedos! That was our cue to praise their dresses. They had made every effort to look different from each other. Debbie’s dress was a prim ivory-lacy thing with a high lace collar. Dianne’s was a pink shimmery gown that made her look something like a candle. They weren’t wearing makeup, but their faces radiated excitement. They’d even taken the rubber bands off their braces.

  I couldn’t tell if their mother had made these dresses for them. Probably best not to ask.

  The mother was a plain-scrubbed, slightly hysterical woman with a ponytail. She fell all over Tim and me, hugging us, thanking us a touch too fervently for taking her girls to the prom. It almost seemed as if she wanted to go herself — as if she might fall to her knees and beg us to take her — and considering the way Mr. Frillinger lurked in the doorway scanning with his cold green eyes, I wouldn’t blame her.

  “Did you see the banner we put up for you?” she cried, breathless from talking so fast. “The girls and I made it ourselves!”

  “Mommy’s so excited,” Dianne said. “We hoped it wouldn’t embarrass you.”

  No, we said, it was cool, we loved it. “I hope you didn’t have to mess up a good bedsheet,” said Tim.

  Everyone tried to ignore the connotations of that remark.

  Mrs. Frillinger bustled around in search of flashbulbs for the Polaroid. “Now where are they, where are they,” she muttered, “they were here just a minute ago, what am I thinking, everybody so dressed up and pretty, and silly me can’t even find a box of stupid flashbulbs! In a minute they’re gonna get sick of waiting and leave, and I won’t have a single picture!” I think she was even weeping a little. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

  At last she found the flashbulbs — “Right here in the drawer! The whole time! Oh how stupid, how stupid can one person be!” She lined us up in a row and blinded us with repeated flashing attacks, then led us blinking from the house to the garage. We reenacted the presentation of the corsages in front of the banner for her camera.

  “Now look into each other’s eyes like little sweethearts,” she said. “A little closer.”