Big Ugly Moose
I
left Atlanta after my father died of influenza, and my mother married
Dr. Campbell. He got offered a position at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in
Ottawa, and claimed, "There's no room for the boy there, Carolyn. And
with our baby coming..."
"What’ll I do with him, Leslie? Put him in a military academy?"
I
held my breath. Mother was in love and would have done anything for Dr.
Campbell. I suspected he hated me because I was constant reminder his
pretty wife had been with another man.
"You have family—save the expense for the boy’s education down the road. Maybe law. Maybe the clergy."
Three
days later I was waiting at the Danville Depot for Barbara Boyle—Aunt
Babbie, who’d raised two brothers and two sisters, and buried three
husbands.
I
was always Child to her, as in, "Land sakes, Child, I‘d know you
anywhere. Look just like your father." It was Boy when she was angry, as
in, "Get in here, Boy, before I set the hounds on you.” And it was, "my
sister's son" when she was talking about me. But on July 3rd, 1920,
when I was 11, I became Lawrence thanks to Mrs. Henrietta Grant.
The
Grants moved next door to us on a sticky August Mississippi day. Me and
Mark Ritter watched shirtless men carry their furniture into the
Smith’s vacant house, while we munched apples in the shade of Aunt Babbie’s elm tree. "What the hell is that?" Mark said. He always cursed when we were alone.
"It's a moose head," I said.
"Why the hell would anybody want with a big old stuffed moose head in their house?"
"Decoration, I reckon”
“Ugly
as hell,” Mark said, and wandered off. He should've stayed till the
trucks were gone. He would have seen Mr. Grant kiss Mrs. Grant and carry
her through the front door.
“It's what newlyweds do, Child," Aunt Babbie told me at dinner.
“They have a big roundtable and a moose head," I told her.
"He's a haberdasher."
“We got a haberdasher church in Danville?" I said.
Aunt
Babbie laughed. “He sells men's clothing, Child, Gentlemen’s things.
Henrietta said he might need somebody to sweep up before closing. You
could earn yourself some movie money, if you had a mind to take the
job." I wrote my mother right off to let her know I was earning my
keep. In a month, I was taking orders for underwear, and taking
tailoring notes as Mr. Grant measured his customers for suits, as well
as dusting shelves and sweeping floors.
“I
need you to run this package over to Mrs. Grant," Mr. Grant told me one
afternoon. “She’s been waitin’ on it. Mind you, knock hard. She may be
upstairs or down in the cellar.”
I
didn't know what was in the package, but I hightailed it over to the
Grant house, banged on the door, good and loud, and handed over the
merchandise that’d come all the way from Charlottesville, North
Carolina. I'd never seen Mrs. Grant up close, never talk to her either
because the Grants weren’t Baptists. They weren’t anything, except
haberdashers. Mark said his parents said Pastor Timothy said they were
godless folks—not Catholics or Jews or anything like that—but as long as
they obeyed the law and didn't cheat anybody, we should be nice to
them.
Yet,
when Henrietta Grant opened the door, I couldn't keep myself from
staring. She was taller than any woman I'd ever seen, and not pretty
like the women in the fashion magazines. Mr. Grant was thinkin’ about
makin’ a department store out of his shop. Expandin’ the trade, he
called it.
“Thank
you, Lawrence is it?” I nodded a yes, and she gave me a dime and closed
the door. I should've left right then, but I’d run so fast in the heat,
I decided I'd get me a lemonade from my house as soon as I deposited
the dime in my bank. I went upstairs, and from my bedroom window, I saw
into Henrietta’s bedroom. She unwrapped the package and held up a blue flower print dress, a pair of ladies panties, a woman's corset, and a slip.
I've never seen women's underthings, except for Aunt Babbie’s bleached
white bloomers and petticoats. Henrietta's underwear was pink and soft.
I could tell because she held the garments next to her cheek and
fondled them with her fingertips. Then she started undressing. I knew I
should look away, but I was like one of those elders in the Bible who
peeped at Susanna. Fascinated. Hypnotized. I’d never seen a naked woman
before. Mark said they had considerable charms, but wouldn’t say what
those charms were. I crept over to the window and knelt down, and peeked
between the curtain and the window sash. I knew she was gonn’a bare her
charms.
When
I got back to the store, Mr. Grant called me back the store room. Maybe
because I was late gettin’ back to the store, or maybe because I was as
white as bleached bloomers—maybe that’s how Mr. Grant knew that I knew
his Henrietta was a man. “Lawrence," he said, "Danville's a really nice
place. We’re really happy here. It's difficult to know people don't want
you, to hear hateful things said to you or someone you love. It’d be
hard for us to move again.”
Especially that big ugly moose head, I remember thinking. But I knew he’d take it with him wherever he went.
The
next day, at the July 4th celebration, Mark asked me where the Grants
had put the big stuffed head. We were sitting on the high school
bleachers, waiting the fireworks, sitting with the rest of our
neighbors, when the Grants walked by. Mr. Grant had his arm around
Henrietta and they each had a lemonade icy in a paper cone. She was
wearing her blue flowered dress and a straw hat that’d come all the way
from Philadelphia. People called out to them, "Hi Henrietta. How's it going, Gus?”
“Hi, Mrs. Boyle. Hi, Lawrence...” she called back. I never told Gus I wouldn’t tell. Some things men just understand.
Mr.
Grant followed her up to the top tier. “It’s in the parlor above the
fireplace. Mr. Grant shot it when they lived in Wisconsin,” I said.
“Does it look ugly?” Mark said.
“Naw. Makes the house look like one of them old-timey lodges you see in National Geographic. I’m goin’ to Wisconsin someday.”
“Why?”
“See me a moose. Maybe get over to Ottawa ‘for I settle down to haberdasherin’.” _________________________________________
Author:
Jenean McBrearty