From the "Music Lesson"
by Martha Lacy Hall
University of Illinois Press
Copyright © 1970, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1994 by Martha Lacy Hall
ISBN 0-252-01129-5
Lucky Lafe
Me and Lafe had a few snorts together last night - first time in about
a year. Seems like it gets harder and harder to get together. We'll
go along, running into each other at the bank or the gas station
almost every day. One of us will say, "Let's get together. Soon, now."
And we keep putting it off. Well, last night we made it, and Lafe
told me the story again-like only Lafe can tell it. I tell you, if I
was a writer, I'd put it all down. Not just because it's a great story,
but because of the way Lafe tells it. He ain't overdramatic, just cool,
and he talks for his mother and Joel and the fellows at the pool hall
just like he was in a play. Only it's not just a tale. It's all true. And
even after all these years, when he gets to the part where Joel goes
home to tell their mother, I get goose bumps. I'm not too old to
get goose bumps.
We were at the big round table in his mama's old dining room
last night, his now, with the light over the middle. The fireplace in
there is in a corner, with a fancy wood mantel, and the fire was
flickering on the wainscot and on the old sideboard with the brown
marble top. The apples shined on the sideboard just like when Mrs.
Carvel polished them with the purple tissue paper that apples used
to come wrapped in. A great room for a few drinks and some talk.
Cozy. Nobody but me and Lafe. Corinne was in New Orleans visiting
her sister.
Lafe's hair is gray-almost white-but still thick, and he parts it
just the same. I'm just about bald. We grew up together from the
time we were babies, and I figure I couldn't have had a better friend.
But the story. The story is about Lafe and his mother and his
brother in World War II. Me and Lafe-that is, Lafe and I-we
wanted to be pilots, but I went in the army and Lafe in the navy.
I never did get out of the country, but it seemed to me like Lafe
was out in the Pacific before you could say Jack Robinson, and on
an aircraft carrier. He was a seaman first class. We sent our pictures
home about the same time, and our mothers got together and car-
ried on over us-me with my PFC chevron showing up plain and
Lafe in his funny little sailor suit-too tight looking-and with that
little white cap jammed down on his ears. That handsome guy
resembled this actor Paul Newman, but he looked more like a big-
eared monkey in that sailor outfit.
I went over to Camp Shelby and then on to Hood, and then I was
up at Meade when the war was over-VE Day and then VJ Day.
I never did get overseas. Hell, who cares now? Who even remem-
bers? But I still wish I had got some kind of overseas duty-some-
where-something to tell my kids about. Not that kids have much
interest in World War II, specially mine, being girls. Anyway, I was
just another stateside private.
But never mind all that. Lafe went to San Francisco and was put
on this aircraft carrier right off the bat. Listen, did you ever see one
of those things? God, it was bigger than two or three football
fields-he said you could hardly see from one end to the other.
They'd been fooling around the Pacific three or four weeks, out
somewhere close to-oh, I forget which one of those islands where
there was so much rough stuff about that time. It was a real hot
spot, but they were just slipping along on the blue water. They knew
there were Japs in those parts, so everyone had been kinda jumpy,
but actually, says Lafe, they were having a pretty good time-no
action. They did their everyday jobs, played some cards, and had
good eats-there are thousands of guys on those carriers. Then on
a Tuesday they were all going about their business when the radar
picked up one little old plane, way off. Well, the old man got on
his horn, and everybody hustled to their posts and waited and
watched, and pretty soon sure enough, here it come. A Jap fighter,
homing in. But wait. It couldn't be no ordinary plane-just one brave
little bastard coming right on at them all by himself.
"Sonofabitch!" hollers Lafe to his dub. "It must be a
goddam
kamikaze!" They shielded their eyes against the high-up sun and
watched that little speck way up there. Everybody was froze-except
the gunners, and the Jap was too little to hit, it seemed like. He circled
around once or twice like a buzzard spotting a field mouse. Then
zoom.
"Here it comes. Straight down," hollered Lafe's buddy. Lafe
always gets his voice quieter when he tells about any shouting or
excitement. And down it come, on a beeline for the elevator amid-
ships.
"Jesus," Lafe hollered and over the side he went -just in the
nick
of time. That crazy little Jap come right on down and blew a huge
hole in the guts of the ship. But it didn't break in two or sink like
you'd expect. Too big, I guess.
All hell broke loose-explosions one after the other, red-hot fires,
black smoke, yelling and screaming, guys blinded, and stuff falling
on the deck and in the water. Lafe was blown way off into the ocean
but, crazy as it may sound, he wasn't hurt. See? This is what I mean
about him. He came up, feeling a little crazy at first, but he treaded
water, and before long he swam a ways and caught hold of a life
jacket. The sea was right smooth and he just held on there, and pretty
soon it was late afternoon and the ship was out of sight.
"Man. What'd you do then, Lafe?" I always ask.
"I took a leak," Lafe always answers. That's part of the story.
I don't know whether he did or not, but I think about it nice and
warm on him for a minute like it used to be over in Hanley's Creek
where the water was ice cold.
Before dark, a U.S. plane come along and swooped down low.
Lafe, he waved. They took a couple of low swipes and dropped a
raft practically on top of him, full of supplies. Lafe climbed
aboard-plum wore out, for godsake. Lord knows how he made
it over the side. He just flopped down exhausted and waterlogged.
Course, many's the time he and I treaded water in Hanley's Creek
practically all day long. But that was different. For one thing we
could find the bottom if we wanted to, and for another there weren't
any sharks to nip our bare asses in Hanley's. It's a wonder a shark
didn't get Lafe out there in the ocean before he could get into that
raft. But that's old Lafe for you-lucky. Always. He beat anything
I ever heard of.
He won all our marbles when we were kids. Then he'd give them
back and win them again. When we moved on to craps, same thing.
He could roll a seven right off the bat, or make his point. Anything
he wanted, there it come. He won eighty dollars at Bank Night at
the Majestic, and he won a radio on a punchboard at the Standard
filling station.
I knew Lafe'd go far and he did. He's a lawyer now, practices right
here in Sweet Bay. Folks have tried to get him to run for judge. Not
Lafe. He's been too good at this corporation law all over the state
to mess up the Carvel name in politics. They're into their fifth gen-
eration here.
Funny thing about Lafe's name. His daddy, Judge Franklin
Carvel, named him for a writer that Lafe's grandpa knew way back
there. I've heard the Judge tell it a hundred times. He'd stand there
and drop his pinch-nose glasses in his breast pocket. "I named my
boy for Lafcadio Hearn, the New Orleans writer. My father and he
were friends when Father was a medical student at Tulane. Hearn
was a strange sort-he went on to Japan, where he became a great
man of letters. A great man. Yessir. He and Father corresponded."
Just like that. Judge kept one of Lafcadio Hearn's letters to Doc
in his safe.
Doc Carvel, Lafe's granddaddy, was a great old family doctor-
went out on house calls any time of night. Mama says he'd come
and mop out her throat with silver nitrate at two o'clock in the morn-
ing if Mamaw called him. But Old Doc was one of them quiet, lonely
drinkers and that's what finally got him, they say. All I can remem-
ber about him is he wore black soft-looking high-top shoes, and lie
sat on his porch at night in a wicker rocker, still in his tie and coat,
even in the summertime. He seemed old to me, and I guess he was.
Judge called Lafe Lafcadio because he knew how special this
Lafcadio bird was to Old Doc, but Lafe's mama took pity on him
and called him Lafe like the rest of us did. Lafe didn't give a hoot,
I can tell you. He didn't resent a name like Lafcadio. Not Lafe. Every
now and then somebody'd give him a little static about it. I can re-
member one time in particular. Herb Jones, whose full name is
Herbert Chichester Jones (his mother was one of the Chichesters),
waltzed up to Lafe-we were about ten at the time-and just bawled
out for no reason at all, "Mr. Lafcadio Hearn Carvel," in a loud
voice right out in the middle of Railroad Avenue.
Lafe, he never turned a hair. He just grinned at old Herb and said,
"Whatcha want, Mr. Herbert Chickenshit Jones?" And that ended
it so far as Lafe was concerned. But Mrs. Jones rang up Mrs. Carvel
to tell on Lafe and then realized she couldn't say chickenshit over
the phone to Mrs. Carvel, so she ended up with, "Well, Mary Nell,
I suggest that you wash Lafe's mouth out with soap. I'm not the
only one that knows he has a naughty tongue, and I just don't want
him polluting Herbie's mind."
Lafe was lucky with girls, too. He got all the best ones, or worst,
whichever he was looking for, when we were in high school. Louise
Dobbs-Easy Louisey-Lafe was going out with her on what we
called late dates when, bless goodness, she turned up expecting.
Before you could say pea turkey, Buddy Galloway steps up to Brother
Higginbotham down at the Baptist parsonage with her. Nowadays
she's president of the garden club, and Buddy's superintendent of
the Sunday school-Methodist. They-but who gives a damn about
Louise and Buddy. I'm just saying Lafe was too smart and lucky
to of married her and had that boy that turned out to be the spittin'
image of old Buddy Galloway. But Buddy is stupid enough to of
married her and had a boy who could've looked like Lafe. See what
I mean?
Well, there was old Lafe, sunning himself in a life raft a million
miles from nowhere. Didn't know where he was and says he never
worried a minute. To this day I think it's a crying shame I couldn't
of been there with him.
Back home the War Department got busy. I think the telegram
said "missing and presumed lost," or something about that hope-
less. Poor Mrs. Carvel. Judge had died by then. Joel was fifteen.
He and Lafe were all she had left, and she had a bad heart. Mama
said Mrs. Carvel was brave, but Berteal, their cook, told Mama she
cried when Joel wasn't in the house. Thought sure Lafe was dead.
What else could she think? The aircraft carrier disaster was in all
the papers and on the radio with lists of dead, missing, and injured;
descriptions of bodies picked up in the ocean. All that. It seemed
sure that if he was "missing" from that mess, he wasn't out there
walking on water. So she knew he was dead.
Dead? Lafe? Are you kidding? Not that lucky rascal. Listen to
this. There was a whole row of screwups in communications. In the
first place, he didn't even know the navy had him down as missing.
He went through about three hospitals to be thumped over and to
rest; papers got mixed up. Mrs. Carvel was home grieving, and old
Lafe was resting his way right back to the west coast.
Almost a month after the telegram came, Lafe got off the train
in Sweet Bay. You wonder why he never dropped his mama a card?
So did she, but she never labored the point. That was just Lafe-
was Lafe. Not now, of course. Not after he finished his educa-
tion-got to be a lawyer and married Corinne. Corinne straightened
him out good. He calls her if he's going to be five minutes late to
supper. He married her in New Orleans after he finished law school.
Corinne is all right. Folks big dogs in New Orleans society and rich
as Croesus, and they loved Lafe. But Corinne is plain as an old shoe
and tight as a tick. Why, that girl will-but this story ain't about
Corinne.
I wish I'd a been there that day when Lafe got home. Me and Lafe
have always been close, even though we've gone different ways at
times. I didn't go to college after the war like he did, but that never
has made any difference to Lafe. I married Mary Eunice-now she
went to Ole Miss-and took over her daddy's gin-had lint in my
eyebrows ever since, and money in the bank, too, if you want to
know the truth. Own a few cattle, nice little bass pond. No reason
for Mary Eunice and Corinne to be as close as Lafe and me, but
they know we're going to get together a few times a year to hunt
or fish or, like last night, just sit around the table and have a few
drinks and shoot the bull. Every year or so he tells me the story again.
He knows how I love to hear it, I guess, because I don't think he
talks about it anymore to anybody else.
Lafe stepped off Number 3 that afternoon and stood there on the
gravel while the train eased on off to Jackson. When the last car
rolled past he could see across the tracks, through the bay trees in
Railroad Park, and there was Railroad Avenue big as life. He hopped
those double tracks same as he had before any of us ever heard of
Hitler or Hirohito. He dticked under the scrawny privet arbor and
crossed the street like he hadn't just returned from being blown off
an aircraft carrier by a suicide plane. He grinned at a few dumb-
founded folks-everybody knew Lafe-and he headed into the pool
hall. The pool hall was in a vacant store that Old Man Reeder owned
then. His daughter rents it out to a chain store now. Dime store.
Who do you think was all drawed back and ready to make a shot
at the middle table? Joel Carvel. His back was to the door. The draft
hadn't left many able-bodied pool shooters in Sweet Bay, but those
who were there that day thought they were seeing a ghost when Lafe
walked in. Joel knew something was going on behind his back. He
laid his cue down on the green baize table and turned around. Slow-
like. The afternoon sun was behind Lafe, and Joel couldn't make
him out at first. He cocked his head to one side and squinted. Then
Lafe came toward him and grinned, and somebody finally found
his tongue and sputtered, "Christ."
I wish I could of been there. Joel grabbed Lafe and hugged him
and cried. Right there. He didn't care who saw him. Everybody
crowded around, pounding Lafe, shaking his hand. Lucky Lafe.
Lucky Lafe. At first Lafe never realized they'd thought he was dead.
"Wait a minute," says Joel, arid he took a swipe at his eyes with
his sleeve. "Mama! Lord, I gotta get home and break this to her
easy. She's been half-crazy over you dying. Now I gotta tell her you're
alive. Man, this is liable to kill her." You could've heard Lafe laugh
all the way up at the drugstore. Then he got serious, because they
finally got it through his head that his mother really did think he
was dead. She had to be handled right or she might have a heart spell.
"Look, Lafe," says Joel, "We gotta get home to Mama 'fore
some-
body calls her from downtown and gives it to her the wrong way.
I bet Miss Ida saw you from the cafr window. If she did, you know
she's already on the phone." Lafe knows Sweet Bay, and he says,
"Come on, Joel, let's cut out the back through the alley."
They ran, says Lafe-raced each other all the way-and made it
in three minutes. On the front porch Lafe leaned against the post
and got hi', breath before he followed Joel into the house.
Mrs. Carvel was back in the kitchen.
"Mama?"
"Yes, Joel? What is it, Honey? You all right?."
"Mama?"
"Joel? What's the matter with you? Is something wrong?"
"No, Mama. Nothing's wrong.
"Well, what'd you come running in here like that for, Son?"
"Mama, how-how'd you like to hear some good news, for a
change?"
"Good news? Joel, you're all the good news I've got left."
"No, Mama. You shouldn't have given up on Lafe. I mean, I think
he's alive. Lafe is alive. I never believed he was dead, Mama. He's
alive."
"Joel." She put her arm around him. "Darling, what's made
you
run in here like this, so full of hope? Bless your - . .
"Mama, sit down. It's true. I'm trying to tell you. I've got word.
Don't get too excited now."
"Got word? Joel Now her voice was a whisper, and she
clutched his sleeve and looked close at his face.
"He's alive, Mama."
"In a hospital? Hurt? Bad?"
"No. There was a mixup. He's perfectly OK."
"Oh, Joel. Lafe! ls Lafe alive? Is he coming home?" She was cry-
ing now and shaking.
"He is home."
"You mean in the States?"
"I mean in the dining room, Mama." And he pushed open the
swinging door.
"Lafe!"
And there stood old Lafe in front of the sideboard, grinning, with
his arms stretched out wide to his mama.
Well, that's it. Now ain't that a story for you? The three of them
cried and hugged and laughed and cried some more. And Mrs. Carvel
didn't die of the shock. It looked like a happy ending, and for her
I reckon it was. She died before Joel had to go to Korea. He got
killed. No question or mixup about that. His body was shipped home
a week or two after they notified Lafe. It went mighty hard on Lafe.
He loved that kid and had big hopes for him.
Lafe's boy went to Vietnam. Ain't that the way with life? It never
ends with one story-or one war. Young Lafe was a helicopter pilot.
He got home safe and now he has a little boy. Last night I said to
Lafe, "Lafe, seems to me like you-all have had a good bit of warring
for peaceable folks. I sure hope Sonny don't ever have to go to war.
Lafe, he looks at the coals popping in the grate. Sonny is his eye-
balls. I can tell by his face that he's thought a lot about this himself.
"Oh, he said, low, like he was going to tell me something serious.
But he just smiled that old smile. We might of been fourteen and
treading water over in Hanley's. He gave the Old Crow a little shove
my way. "Here, old buddy. Sweeten her up a little."