Our Own Little Worlds

  Our Own Little Worlds

     Although my daddy had nothing but contempt for ”bluebloods,” my mama was ambitious for me, a shy and sickly only child, so she immediately accepted when Mrs. Tillyard called and asked if I would like to come and play with Lawson at his home.  Situated on a hill overlooking Sailsbury Park, it was an impressive two-story clapboard house with white square columns, high ceilings, faded oriental rugs, and an odor that had something musty and sweet and sad about it.  I hadn’t wanted to come to play with this strange private school boy who was so pale that you could see blue veins running like rivers underneath his skin.   But there he was with his longish curly red hair and big blue eyes and tiny girlish mouth holding out his hand for me to shake, and he spoke like a character in a book or an old movie.  After shaking, he said in a cultivated singsong, “Shall we go upstairs so I can show you my toys?”

      I followed him up, glancing back down at Mama talking to Mrs. Tillyard, whose hair was already white and who stood stiffbacked like a school teacher.  I wanted to kiss Mama goodbye, but now she was out-of-sight as I followed Lawson to a room at the end of the hall.  Walking on tiptoes and leaning forward at an awkward angle, he opened the door to a room like I had never seen before.  Someone - a skilled artist - had painted on the walls a vista looking out from the battlements of a castle. Silver armored knights on horseback jousted in the distance. Across rolling green hills lurked dragons, fairies, faraway castles, and a forest.  Puffy white clouds floated in the blue sky of the ceiling, I must have been gawking. 

       Lawson said matter-of-factly, “Welcome to my own little world.”  Then he added,  “Close the door.  Quickly.”

    I didn’t like to be bossed around by a kid, but I obeyed.  “I know they call you Trey,” he said, “but what is your Christian name?”

     “Christian name?”

     “Your real first name.”

     “It’s John.”

     “I shall call you John then.  I detest nicknames.”  He was looking at me neutrally, and his tone wasn’t unfriendly.  “By the way,” he said.  “I play with dolls.”

     This admission did not surprise me all that much.  He wasn’t the first boy I’d met who played with dolls.  It seemed to me that playing with dolls was wrong because I knew grown ups would disapprove, but when he opened one of the hatches of a built-in chest that ran the length of the windowed wall, I saw that the dolls were not baby dolls but miniature people, both male and female, dressed in costumes from various countries - a Japanese woman, a Scotsman with kilts and a bagpipe, a dark skinned boy with a turban.  They were standing in a row, about ten of them, facing sideways in the same direction as if they were waiting in line for something. 

     He reached in and retrieved a yellow haired pigtailed girl in a alpine outfit who had been painted light brown in an unprofessional way.  “This is my lady in waiting.  Her name is Octavia.”                                                                                                             

     “Who painted her brown?”

     “I did.”

     “Why?”

      “Because the real Octavia is brown.”

     Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Tillyard and Mama stepped in.  I was afraid that they would see the doll and disapprove, but they didn’t seem to notice.  “My word,” Mama said, “this room is like a wonderland!”

     “Painting the nursery was Lawson’s idea,” Mrs. Tillyard said proudly.  “Lawson’s very much the bookworm, very enamored of the Middle Ages.”

      Mama smiled weakly, then told me goodbye and that she’d pick me up at four.  I didn’t get up but just sat there next to the longest toy chest in the world and waved goodbye to her.   I now was feeling more at ease, as if I might have fun after all with this boy who acted more like a girl than a boy.

     After they left, Lawson asked me what I liked to do, and I said I liked to play checkers, but he suggested Parcheesi instead, and Parcheesi sounded good.  He got up and went over to a different compartment of the chest and brought out the game, carefully unpacking it.  Finally, he plinked a pair of dice into one of the four cardboard canisters, and handed it to me.

     “Pick whatever color you like and go first.”

     “Don’t you want to roll for it?”

     “No,” he said, “you’re my guest.  You go first.”

     So we played Parcheesi, emphatically counting out the steps of the men, tapping them in the spaces: one-two-three; one-two-three-four. 

     “I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself into a tragic love affair,” Lawson said out of the blue.  I glanced up from the board.  He was sitting with his legs crossed in front of him while leaning on his right arm.

      I didn’t say anything.

     “I met her at Spells Grocery Store.  Have you been to Spells?  It’s marvelous.  Near the train tracks.  It’s a dusty, dark, old country grocery store loaded with Mary Janes, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Tootsie Rolls piled like treasure behind the glass.  It’s there I met Octavia.  It was love at first sight.  I consider her my lady in waiting.  But I can tell you right now it’s doomed.”

     Although I secretly liked girls, you were supposed to pretend you hated them.  “Octavia’s a funny name,” I said.

      She’s colored,’ Lawson said.  “That’s not an unusual colored name.”

      “Colored?”

      “Colored as in Alston Elementary School.”

      Though I didn’t look up, I could tell he was staring at me.  “You shouldn’t kid like that,” I said.

      “I’m not kidding,” he said.  “She’s the most beautiful girl in the entire world.”

     “That’s impossible,” I said.

     “Why do you say that?”  He looked at me strangely, disappointedly.  I could see that he wasn’t kidding.  I suddenly felt sick.

     “Colored people aren’t allowed to be beautiful.”

     “Who says?”

     “Everybody.”

     “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he said.

      I rattled the dice and cast them.   My stomach was tightening, beginning to cramp. What this strange, strange boy was saying was way way way against the rules, far worse than playing with dolls.  I literally felt as if I might be in mortal danger.  I wanted to call Mama, but I was scared to because she wouldn’t believe that my stomach really hurt, and she would be very disappointed in me. “I’m tired of playing this,” Lawton said.  “Do you want to see my very favorite toy?  What’s the matter with you? Are you crying?”

     “I got a stomach ache,” I said.  “It really, really hurts.”

     “Perhaps, it is something that you ate,” he suggested.  “It will go away.”

      “I need to call my mama to come get me,” I said.  “I’ve got Crohn's Disease.”

     He suddenly looked terribly concerned.  “Very well, stay here.  I’ll inform Mother if you make me a solemn promise.”

      “What’s that?”

     “That you promise to come see me again when you’re better.  I like you.  You don’t seem stupid like all of the boys Mother calls and brings around here.  And I haven’t shown you my model castle with all of my toy knights and ladies and dragons and ogres.  It’s the tiny version of what is painted on the wall, my own little kingdom.  We can play Ivanhoe and create our own epics.  It’s a lot more fun than Parcheesi.  Do you promise?  Give me your word of honor.”

     “I promise,’ I said.

     “Word of honor.”

     “Word of honor.”

        

     But, of course, I never did go visit Lawton again.  On the way home in the car I told Mama when she started fussing at me how Lawson liked to play with dolls and how he told me he was in love with a colored girl.  And when Mrs. Tillyard later called to invite me over, I heard my mama whispering a lie into the telephone receiver, the first lie I ever heard her tell.  Eventually, Mrs. Tillyard gave up and quit calling, and after Lawson was shipped up north to a boarding school, my memory of him and his own little world faded.

       On weeknights, Daddy would come home from the Shipyard, turn on the nightly news, and together we would watch the belligerent Mississippi sheriffs, the policemen with fire hoses, and the snarling German shepherds. Then one day, I found myself in Spell’s Grocery for the first time, and I remembered Octavia, his lady in waiting, and I think I might have seen her, a tall, slender, graceful girl with cornrows and a calico dress counting out six pennies on the counter.