The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son by Pat Conroy Page B

mother gonna think?”
    “I don’t know what your mama’s going to think. I don’t know thewoman. I’ve seen her two or three times in my life. She’s never written me, called me, asked me a question, or sent me a gift. She wouldn’t know me if she passed me in the streets of Chicago. And that goes for your daddy, too. I don’t know a single thing about any of your Chicago relatives. But I imagine I’ll start hearing from all of them soon.”
    And hear from them I did.
    I believe the first to check in was Father Jim Conroy, who was furious from the first word out of his mouth to the last. He called me a Southern sack of shit, and a perverted ingrate who had eaten one too many bowls of grits in my morose, father-hating life. He was going to send his copy of the book to my mother’s people in Piedmont so they could use it in their outhouses. He wished my father had beaten me up a lot more, because I deserved it.
    After his rant, I said, “Father Jim, remember that wonderful summer fishing trip you took me on when I was ten? You beat me more that summer than my dad did. I ain’t ten anymore, Father Jim. Come beat me up now, big fella, and I’ll send you back north in a body bag.”
    My grandmother called and bawled me out, followed by my grandfather, who told me if I really wanted to learn how to write to read James Fenimore Cooper. “It’s all there, Pat. It’s all there.”
    Sister Marge checked in, as did Aunt Mary, Uncle Willie, Uncle Jack—everyone but Uncle Ed, Dad’s youngest brother.
    To my complete astonishment, my mother and her family started checking in with their own barrage of literary criticism. My mother’s reaction was the most devastating.
    “Nice going, Pat. You managed to destroy your entire family’s good reputation. Your father will walk like a leper in whatever town he is in. I won’t be able to show my face in Beaufort for the rest of my life. Your brothers and sisters will have to move out of state and change their names. We’re ruined, son. You stabbed your own family right through the heart.”
    “Mom,” I said, “do you remember when we read Thomas Wolfe’s biography, and what you said to me after his family and town went nuts about
Look Homeward, Angel
? You said you’d be proud if one of your children ever wrote about your family.”
    “You know I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I hate your portrait of me.”
    “If the book has one great flaw, it’s that your character is flawless, way too good to be true.”
    “To me, Lillian Meecham was a sappy, tacky, spineless creature, not the fighter you know me to be. Lillian set my teeth on edge every time she opened her mouth.”
    “Listen to me,” I pleaded. “I wrote about you the way I saw you as a boy. To me you were the most beautiful, loving woman on earth. That image of you got me through our god-awful family. I had to make Lillian perfect, because that’s how I looked up to you as a boy.”
    “Then you’re just a lousy writer. A shallow one, too,” she said.
    “My God, Mom,” I said, flabbergasted by her blindside hit on everything that was most significant to me. Because my mother was so well read, she knew exactly how to wound the heart of a young, insecure writer, and her appraisal was uncompromising.
    Finally, she ended her critique with a summing-up. “Here’s why you really stink as a writer, Pat. You gave that book to
him
. You gave
him
center stage, the starring role. You had
him
rule that house. Let me tell you a secret, son—I ruled that house and everything that went on in it. I could make him dance like a puppet whenever I wanted. I was the power in that house. I was the boss and the chief of police in every town we entered. You just weren’t a good enough writer to see who was really in charge.”
    “I know what you’re saying. Since I grew up, I can see you as a much more complicated woman than I ever realized. I know that now. But for this book, I had to paint a flawless portrait of you.