I Remember Alabama

He lived in the filthiest St Marks place hell hole. I had expected a brownstone. Or Upper West Side. Nope. Now that he had given up custody of his golden haired son, Louis, he lived in the dangerous neighborhood. 
His red haired wife, Matilda, lived on the Upper east side. She was a writer for the Times, a most intellectual and ethereal woman before he started to loathe her.

After work, Cleary comes home, unlocks the door, and finds me accidentally watching TV. Shit, shit, shit. I jump up in a panic. He smells like nicotine.

“Seat yourself, nanny” he says grandly and kindly, waving his fingers in the hair, like a prince. Skinny people smoke a lot.

“Don’t worry. I’m running late. I had to talk to Matilda.”

I fidget in my green army jacket. I brush back my long black hair, the mane through my fingertips like silk. 
This is the night with Cleary. This is like sticking your finger in a socket, electrified. But worth it.

“Sit down. Have some grub. Pop a Fellini tape.” He says, stubbing out his cigarette. And I do.

Three hours later, I am writing in his bed with my marble notebook. I wrap the sheets over my olive skin. I’m writing a poem about tonight, about him, about my name.

“Caddy,” he purrs. “Sound of the Fury, huh?”
“Yep,” I sigh. “My father was a military man at West Point. But we were stationed in Alabama.”
“Southern girls kick ass.”
I wrinkled my small nose.
“His favorite books were Faulkner.”
“Nice.”

“I grew up like a Cherokee princess. Alabama was mostly blonde and Republican and fricking hot.”
“You’re hot.”
“Nope. Thanks. People said I looked exactly like Ali MacGraw — before I hit puberty.”

“She’s gorgeous.”

“Men always stared at me. Neighbors too.”

“What happened?”
“My hips grew. Anyway. So I like your name, Cleary.”
“At your service,” he says. “Did I have a boyfriend in high school? In upstate New York?”

“Three guys.” I recall. “Maron, the flax pot-smoker with the bluest eyes. He was a poet, transplanted from Iowa City. Then Harmony Bright, the lawyer’s son. He wanted to be famous. And the baddest boy, Tavi Pallatino, my best friend’s boyfriend before me –“
“Uh oh. You cheat.”
“Sorry.”

“What did he do?”

“He worked as a Hesse gas station attendant when he wasn’t sending me love sick CDs of the Doors songs.“
“Do you still know them?
“No,” I say decisively. “And I like it that way.”

My past.

Alabama, with those skies out of the Leonard Skynyrd song. My childhood years belonged to Alabama. Mashed potatoes, aging plantations, Southern belles. No snow, even in winter. The Confederate flag flew at the Capitol building in town. And the KKK marched at the mall.

My father was a successful captain, who was transferred from West Point. We lived in the most beautiful house on the base, the big two story Victorian home passed down generation to generation. My mother was a beautiful Polynesian officer’s wife, the prettiest lady on base.

My dad wore a white uniform that struck a nice contrast with his dark good looks. He reminded many of the actor George Clooney: coffee colored eyes with long lashes, and a bombastic, assured voice. He had the grace of a star. During the day we never saw him. He arrived home at night fall, and the door swung open.

I dug my hand for the candy and he held me tight. While he was stern with the base boys, with my cousins, he was always chivalrous with me and he told me how proud he was. This was fair-minded Atticus Finch, this was papa.

He was everything to me.
 
 Dear Daddy.
 
 No matter when we moved, or where we lived in New Jersey or upstate, there was this tiny nostalgic piece of me that loved the South.

The base wives smiled at me like they owned me; they were either wholesome, stereotypical Southern women with permed blonde hair and lots of makeup, or else ebony haired foreign women.

The base parties were so much fun.

I remember my dentist most of all, out of all my Alabama memories. Peyton DuPont. He was the best of the South, engaging, from Mississippi, almost aristocratically wealthy, a gentleman, and he loved my teeth a lot. He plied off the metal braces at 13, the year we moved to Jersey.

“You’ll forget all about us,” he grinned. “My favorite set of white teeth will never remember her boring dentist.”

The truth was Mr. DuPont was a staggeringly good looking bachelor, with tawny hair and robin’s egg blue eyes. All the married ladies loved him, but out of all these grown ladies, he adored me alone and I was thirteen years old.

It was very Lolita. My innocence, my summer tan, and my perfect teeth.