A Vision of Death in August

MAUDIE LOFTIS, at the Mordecai Clinic, Richmond, Virginia, September, 1945.

________ [ital.]

LORD, I don't know how many times I remember seeing Papa come tearing up the lawn when I'd be sitting there sewing on the porch. I sewed a lot that summer. A sampler I remember I did for old lady Dyke who was in the hospital. She died before I was finished but I remember how much trouble it took because Mama taught me a lot of new things about sewing - stitching she called it - and I did that sampler in blue and red with a verse on it that went God bless our home a happy one. I forget the rest but Peyton would laugh at me every afternoon and say that it was old-fashioned and I could hear Mama holler out, "Hush, Peyton, hush." Peyton was around nine years old then, I reckon, because she's six years younger than me and I was fifteen then. Fifteen then because that's how old I was when I got out of The School. And it was that summer that I sat on the porch every afternoon and worked on the sampler. They taught me at The School. And I'd sit there in the swing out of the sun, moving every once in a while when the sunshine would hit me, you know, and then Papa would come home, tearing up the lawn yelling "Peyton, Peyton!" I couldn't see him for the hydrangeas but I could hear his voice. Lord, that was a long time ago, but I remember it plain. I was fifteen then because I remember Peyton had her ninth birthday then. She was born in June and she's six years younger than me. "Peyton, Peyton," I could hear Papa holler, and the dog - his name was Dover. He's dead now but his name was Dover because that's what Peyton called him when she was a baby and couldn't say the name right. I think his name was really Rover or something - he'd run out barking at Papa and Papa would come up the steps with sweat on his face and pat me on the back and say "Hello, Maudie, honey," and run right into the house hollering, "Peyton, Peyton." And Peyton would be hid somewhere in the house and he'd rush all over inside, I could hear him inside whistling and then she'd come out from wherever she was hid and if they were near the window I could see him pick her up and kiss her, him laughing and her laughing just like that. Oh I reckon "he was his favorite, all right. He'd call her his little glamour girl and then Mama would holler out from the sunporch in the back. I could hear her say, "Milton, Milton, please try to be quiet, my migraine is so bad today," and they'd hush up, Papa and Peyton, and then they'd come out of the house real quiet, whispering together like he wasn't any older than her, and go up to Powhatan Road and get some ice-cream and bring me back some. Lord, it was hot that summer. I couldn't walk very far, just like now, on account of my leg, and while they'd be gone I'd sit there and sew and watch the water. We live on the water, on Hampton Roads. Papa always said it was the best place for a house in Port Warwick, where we live, and I guess so. In the summer the water is real blue and you can see the battleships and airplane carriers and all. When Peyton got older Papa would take her out clamming and Mama and me would sit on the porch and drink ice tea and watch them way out in the low tide looking like sticks, Papa teaching Peyton how to clam. I couldn't ever go on account of my leg, you know, and I never wanted to go much anyhow because, Lord, I always thought clams and oysters are the messiest things there are. I like fish and softshell crabs and all, but clams and oysters are messy. Mama didn't ever go with them clamming. She didn't think it was dignified. That's what she'd say. "Milton, why don't you let Clay get those clams? I think it looks awful undignified for you to do that." And Papa would say, "Where's all your spirit, Helen?" That's what he'd say. Clay's our nigger boy, only he's not with us any more. He left a long time ago. Papa said he went up North where he could make more money. I don't know. But Papa would always take Peyton clamming. We live on the Boulevard and there are a lot of houses around us but we own the beach and we had a boat, too, until the storm blew it away. We own the clams, too. Papa was always down there on the beach with Peyton in the summer, building sand houses and all. That is, when he wasn't playing golf. He used to love golf. He doesn't play any more because he's got heart trouble, I think. He's a lawyer and he played golf with all of his and Mama's friends. They were mostly doctors and lawyers that belonged to the country club because they were the only ones in Port Warwick that had any money, Papa always said. But some of the bosses in the shipyard used to play, too. Me and Mama would sit there watching Papa and Peyton way out clamming, watching them go down the beach until they weren't any bigger than sticks, the sunlight shining down and the water real green, until you couldn't see them any more and all you could see was the beach stretching down in a kind of curve to Old Point and Norfolk across the water looking real little with the smoke coming up and making the sky smoky and all. Mama would sit there on the swing by me until you couldn't see them any more, looking mad and saying that Papa forgot all about her when Peyton was around. And then she'd go in and tell Ella Swan - she's our nigger cook - to cook dinner and she'd come out and stroke my hair and say, "my dear little darkeyed girl," and then she'd go back on the sunporch and lie down. I'd just sit there and sew on that old sampler until Papa and Peyton would come back around six o'clock with mud all over their legs and they'd be laughing together like they always did. Peyton was only nine years old but she was smart, Lord, she was smart, like she is now I reckon, and Papa and her would be talking together like she wasn't any younger than him at all. Once Peyton put a clam down my neck and Lord didn't I scream. I just hollered and cried and Mama came out and slapped Peyton good and hard. "Didn't I tell you to quit teasing her?" Mama said, and Peyton cried and Mama cried and I was crying fit to kill. Papa came out and told Mama to quit slapping Peyton and they argued something awful and I walked out on the breakwater and watched the ships. Lord, I remember that summer so well. Papa and Peyton never went clamming together any years after that because I guess Peyton was growing up and she had a lot of friends in school and all. I never went to public school myself, on account of my leg, I mean I was in public school for a while in the first and second grades but I never could do my work as good as the other children on account of my leg and finally Mama and Papa took me out and sent me to a private teacher named Miss Barton. I don't remember much about her. Then when I got a little older they sent me to The School up in Maryland. I was up there five years. It was built like a home, almost, and there were fifteen girls besides me. It was on a green hill...