On my seventh
birthday, my parents gave me a Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat.
I still have it;
the book rests on the shelf above my desk, along with other Seuss works I've
collected. Inside The Cat in the Hat's cover, my mother wrote an inscription,
using her English teacher's precise penmanship.
"Happy Birthday, Andy. As you grow older,
you'll realize many truths dwell within these pages. Much love, Mom and
Dad."
Mom was right,
of course. She most always is.
My favorite line
in The Cat in the Hat is this one:
"Be who you
are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who
matter don't mind."
***
Loretta McPhail
was a notorious Tallahassee slumlord. On a steamy afternoon, in August 1976,
she spoke to me in her North Florida drawl: part magnolia, part crosscut saw.
"The rent's
one-twenty-five. I'll need first, last, and a security deposit, no exceptions."
McPhail wore a
short-sleeved shirtwaist dress, spectator pumps, and a straw hat with a green
plastic windowpane sewn into the brim. Her skin was as pale as cake flour. A
gray moustache grew on her winkled upper lip, and age spots peppered the backs
of her hands. Her eyeglasses had lenses so thick her gaze looked buggy.
I'd heard
McPhail held title to more than fifty properties in town, all of them cited
multiple times for violation of local building codes. She owned rooming houses,
single family homes, and small apartment buildings, mostly in neighborhoods
surrounding Florida State University's campus. Like me, her tenants sought
cheap rent; they didn't care if the roof leaked or the furnace didn't work.
The Franklin
Street apartment I viewed with McPhail wasn't much: a living room and kitchen,
divided by a three-quarter wall; a bedroom with windows looking into the rear
and side yards; a bathroom with a wall-mounted sink, a shower stall and a
toilet with a broken seat. In each room, the plaster ceilings bore water marks.
The carpet was a leopard skin of suspicious-looking stains, and the whole place
stank of mildew and cat pee.
McPhail's
building was a two-storied, red brick four-plex with casement windows that
opened like book covers, a Panhandle style of architecture popular in the
1950s. Shingles on the pitched roof curled at their edges. Live oaks and
longleaf pines shaded the crabgrass lawn, and skeletal azaleas clung to the
building's exterior.
In the kitchen,
I peeked inside a rust-pitted Frigidaire. The previous tenant had left gifts: a
half-empty ketchup bottle, another of pickle relish. A carton of orange juice
with an expiration date three months past sat beside a tub of margarine.
Out in the
stairwell, piano music tinkled -- a jazzy number I didn't recognize.
McPhail clucked
her tongue and shook her head.
"I've told
Fergal -- and I mean several times -- to close his door when he plays, but he
never does. I'm not sure why I put up with that boy."
McPhail pulled a
pack of Marlboros from a pocket in the skirt of her dress. After tapping out
two cigarettes, she jammed both between her lips. She lit the Marlboros with a
brushed-chrome Zippo, and then she gave me one cigarette.
I puffed and
tapped a toe, letting my gaze travel about the kitchen. I studied the chipped
porcelain sink, scratched Formica countertops, and drippy faucet. Blackened
food caked the range's burner pans. The linoleum floor's confetti motif had
long ago disappeared in high-traffic areas. Okay, the place was a dump. But the
rent was cheap, and campus was less than a mile away. I could ride my bike to
classes, and to my part-time job as caddy at the Capital City Country Club.
Still, I
hesitated.
The past two
years, I'd lived in my fraternity house with forty brothers. I took my meals
there, too. If I rented McPhail's apartment, I'd have to cook for myself. What
would I eat? Where would I shop for food?
Other questions
flooded my brain. Where would I wash my clothes? And how did a guy open a
utilities account? The apartment wasn't furnished. Where would I purchase a
bed? What about a dinette and living room furniture? And how much did such
things cost? It all seemed so complicated.
Still . . .
Lack of privacy
at the fraternity house would pose a problem for me this year. Over summer
break -- back home in Pensacola -- I'd experienced my first sexual encounter
with another male, a lanky serviceman named Jeff Dellinger, age twenty-four.
Jeff was a Second Lieutenant from Eglin Air Force Base. I met him at a sand
volleyball game behind a Pensacola Beach hotel, and he seemed friendly. I liked
his dark hair, slim physique, and ready smile, but wasn't expecting anything
personal to happen between us.
After all, I was
a "straight boy", right?
We bought each other beers at the Tiki bar, and
then Jeff invited me up to his hotel room. Once we reached the room, Jeff
prepared two vodka/tonics. My drink struck like snake venom, and then my
brain fuzzed. Jeff opened a bureau drawer; he produced a lethal-looking pistol
fashioned from black metal. The pistol had a matte finish and a checked grip.
"Ever seen
one of these?"
I shook my head.
"It's an
M1911 -- official Air Force issue. I've fired it dozens of times."
Jeff raised the
gun to shoulder height. He closed one eye, focused his other on the pistol's
barrel sight. "Shooting's almost... sensual," he said. Then he looked
at me. "It's like sex, if you know what I mean."
I shrugged, not
knowing what to say.
Jeff handed the
pistol to me. It weighed more than I'd expected, between two and three pounds.
I turned the pistol here and there, admiring its sleek contours. The grip felt
cold against my palm and a shiver ran through me. I'd never fired a handgun,
never thought to.
"Is it
loaded?" I asked.
Jeff bobbed his
chin. "One bullet's in the firing chamber, seven more in the magazine;
it's a semi-automatic."
After I handed
Jeff the gun, he returned it to his bureau's drawer while I sipped from my
drink, feeling woozier by the minute. Jeff sat next to me, on the room's double
bed. His knee nudged mine, our shoulders touched, and I smelled his
coconut-scented sunscreen.
Jeff laid a hand
on my thigh. Then he squeezed. "You don't mind, do you?"
About the Author:
