Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus Page B
Authors: Allan Gurganus
Tags: General Fiction
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fluff up, squash down. Still, each vet understood how holy a true story is. Even the men that played most fast and loose, they respected a real one. Especially them. A liar’s goal is to make up one that’s half as good as Real Life’s usual unusual. Ain’t a secret, child: storytelling is one kind of revenge. Maybe losers get better at it than the winning side. Honey, us losers have to be.
WEEKLY practice with Winona (all those Thursdays among canary cages), it paid off during a late-night dinner at the Mayor’s mansion (anniversary of Antietam). Marsden had drunk a extra glass of claret. He sat listening to the gent on his left, a man who’d never fought for anything more pressing than attention at such refined civilian parties. The mustached man made a quip about why we’d lost. Said our Southern aristocrats had been way too genteeeel to butcher like your cruder Yankee bulldogs would.
Marsden’s fist went up. All talk hushed. He brought that hand down, grabbed a butter knife, chimed his emptied claret glass, said real loud, “I object, sir. Case in point, sir …”
Willie told a short if right heroic story. Next he recalled a second, longer one—and a third. Seemed a backlog waited, each tale with its hand up, calling, “Me. Me next, sir.” (The tales he told were by now worked smooth as glass, perfected in a lady’s parlor then a lady’s tent.)
The Mayor’s other guests slowly turned chairs to face a local fellow who,during the fish course and for his total lifetime previous, had been known as the silent type—then, since the war, as the strong and silent type. Even the offending dandy tipped back in his chair, crossed his arms, and listened, his head tilted like a dare. This was the beginning of it. Seemed public storytelling was a contagion young Marsden had picked up from gimpy Courthouse regulars, from the hurt and hurtful mother of a missing loved one.
The man talked real halting at first. Maybe the years’ silence gave his speech—when it finally reached others’ air—such feist and wallop. Willie’s style was more straightforward than my own. I love the flourish of beginnings. He was mad for middles. Went straight there. Telling gets to be a habit. Soon it seemed natural to him and others, Private Willie Marsden’s talking at last.
HAD TO BE night before he’d tell.
At the banquet, at your table, he’d place a fork opposite a soup bowl and make it be a tree beside a lake. Pepper from the shaker he’d sprinkle out to draw with, one antlike line crossing tablecloth connected snipers’ willow roost to where snipers’ shells would have to hit. Afterwards, a hostess cleaning up might sit at Cap Marsden’s empty place, might study a pepper line, would touch it with her fingertip, maybe sneeze. Women longed to nurse him back to health, like peace was some simple rhubarb tonic, a recipe known from the inside out to females only. Men respected Cap, meaning they were just a little scared of him. They never onct corrected his war dates or place names, though all men felt they were true scholars of the fight. They never interrupted. Marsden had grown a lot. And when the gent got to rolling with his newfound battle tales, he looked even bulkier. Poor man left no fact out, couldn’t. He’d hang forward, sometimes doing cannon sounds (you never laughed). Told how loud cannon concussions made horses’ toilet habits change and nobody judged it unrefined, Cap’s mentioning this even at Preacher’s house. Cap would get to breathing from lower in, like a singer will, eyes half wet, him soon rocking back and forwards, with your finest crockery rearranged before him. Soup tureen: Sherman, who had burned Marsden’s mother’s china-doll face. The vinegar cruet was rebel General Johnston, who’d failed to prevent a pale beauty’s being cooked. With tableware mustered into being serious battle-map toys, us guests leaned toward candlelight and him.—Oh, honey, everybody, ears to kneecaps, was soon
WEEKLY practice with Winona (all those Thursdays among canary cages), it paid off during a late-night dinner at the Mayor’s mansion (anniversary of Antietam). Marsden had drunk a extra glass of claret. He sat listening to the gent on his left, a man who’d never fought for anything more pressing than attention at such refined civilian parties. The mustached man made a quip about why we’d lost. Said our Southern aristocrats had been way too genteeeel to butcher like your cruder Yankee bulldogs would.
Marsden’s fist went up. All talk hushed. He brought that hand down, grabbed a butter knife, chimed his emptied claret glass, said real loud, “I object, sir. Case in point, sir …”
Willie told a short if right heroic story. Next he recalled a second, longer one—and a third. Seemed a backlog waited, each tale with its hand up, calling, “Me. Me next, sir.” (The tales he told were by now worked smooth as glass, perfected in a lady’s parlor then a lady’s tent.)
The Mayor’s other guests slowly turned chairs to face a local fellow who,during the fish course and for his total lifetime previous, had been known as the silent type—then, since the war, as the strong and silent type. Even the offending dandy tipped back in his chair, crossed his arms, and listened, his head tilted like a dare. This was the beginning of it. Seemed public storytelling was a contagion young Marsden had picked up from gimpy Courthouse regulars, from the hurt and hurtful mother of a missing loved one.
The man talked real halting at first. Maybe the years’ silence gave his speech—when it finally reached others’ air—such feist and wallop. Willie’s style was more straightforward than my own. I love the flourish of beginnings. He was mad for middles. Went straight there. Telling gets to be a habit. Soon it seemed natural to him and others, Private Willie Marsden’s talking at last.
HAD TO BE night before he’d tell.
At the banquet, at your table, he’d place a fork opposite a soup bowl and make it be a tree beside a lake. Pepper from the shaker he’d sprinkle out to draw with, one antlike line crossing tablecloth connected snipers’ willow roost to where snipers’ shells would have to hit. Afterwards, a hostess cleaning up might sit at Cap Marsden’s empty place, might study a pepper line, would touch it with her fingertip, maybe sneeze. Women longed to nurse him back to health, like peace was some simple rhubarb tonic, a recipe known from the inside out to females only. Men respected Cap, meaning they were just a little scared of him. They never onct corrected his war dates or place names, though all men felt they were true scholars of the fight. They never interrupted. Marsden had grown a lot. And when the gent got to rolling with his newfound battle tales, he looked even bulkier. Poor man left no fact out, couldn’t. He’d hang forward, sometimes doing cannon sounds (you never laughed). Told how loud cannon concussions made horses’ toilet habits change and nobody judged it unrefined, Cap’s mentioning this even at Preacher’s house. Cap would get to breathing from lower in, like a singer will, eyes half wet, him soon rocking back and forwards, with your finest crockery rearranged before him. Soup tureen: Sherman, who had burned Marsden’s mother’s china-doll face. The vinegar cruet was rebel General Johnston, who’d failed to prevent a pale beauty’s being cooked. With tableware mustered into being serious battle-map toys, us guests leaned toward candlelight and him.—Oh, honey, everybody, ears to kneecaps, was soon
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