The Great Santini Part 50

"Do you want a written affidavit, feces face?" Mary Anne said from the backseat.

"It's just so we don't have to stop every fifteen seconds."

"Why are we leaving at three in the morning, Ben?"

"We always leave early in the morning," he answered. "There's no traffic. You make better time. Dad was right about that. Anyway, Mom has an interview for a job in Atlanta tomorrow afternoon."

Lillian Meecham got in the car. Ben started the engine and they moved out of the driveway slowly, each of them looking at the grand and elegant house for a last time.

"I don't want to leave Ravenel, Mom. I'll never see Mary Helen and Alice and Cynthia ever again."

"We'll be back to Ravenel, sugah. We'll come back to visit."

"That's what you said about Cherry Point and New River."

"We'll get back to Cherry Point and New River someday."

"No we won't, Mama. We never do."

"That's right, Karen. You'll never see any of them again," Mary Anne said. "They're all dead."

"Please don't," Lillian said to Mary Anne.

"It's time, Mama. As far as Karen is concerned, Mary Helen and Alice and Cynthia are as good as dead."

"Well it's good-bye, Ravenel," Matt said. "I'm ready to move. I like moving. I wish we weren't going back to Atlanta. I'd like to go somewhere completely new."

Ben eased the car down Eliot Street and onto Granville. Every point they pa.s.sed was a landmark; every block contained memories. They pa.s.sed the cemetery where their father was buried and none of them looked in that direction. Lillian began the rosary for a safe trip. The family did not feel like singing.

They were out of town and heading down the Atlanta road when Ben felt something warm and wet on the back of his neck. With his left hand he wiped away a warm inconsequential water from his neck. He looked into the rearview mirror as he slowed for a crossroads and saw Mary Anne with a silver spoon catching tears as they fell from her eyes and flicking the spoon at her brother.

"Hey, cut it out, Mary Anne," Ben said angrily. "I'm not Santini." That he had invoked his father's nom de guerre surprised him. He thought about the words he had just said and felt more tears splash against his neck. He pressed the accelerator and they were traveling again, moving down a dark southern highway, moving, rolling again as they had done so many times before. The tears. .h.i.t again in the purest form of grief and protest.

His anger subsided, for it was Mary Anne and at that moment he knew she would always fling tears at men who sat in front seats and at all the men in her life. Her weapons would always come from her eyes and her tongue, from her face. For his whole life, Ben had thought that he was her most significant ally, but lately, he had come to look at himself differently. He was beginning to suspect and recognize his own venomously subtle enmity to his own sister. Because he had been afraid, he had said "yes" to everything his parents wanted, had let himself be sculpted by his parents' wishes, had danced to the music of his parents every dream, and had betrayed his sister by not preparing them for a girl who would not dance. But Ben knew that there was a girl named Mary Anne in the backseat who could teach Lillian and all the other lovely women in the world things about beauty they would never know. He had always thought that Mary Anne had been harmed by the coldness of her father and the beauty of her mother. It was only lately that he was having small moments of clarity, of illumination, and seeing himself for the first time as the closest of Mary Anne's enemies, the kindest of her a.s.sa.s.sins.

Then he said the words again. "I am not Santini," but this time he said them where only he could hear.

And he realized that he lived in a Santiniless world now and he trembled when he thought that he was, in many ways, relieved that his father was dead. It made him angry that a burden was lifted from him at his father's funeral and it made him suffer. He wanted to wake his mother and ask her questions but he knew that Lillian could not help him now. Twenty-five miles of highway pa.s.sed without his knowledge, twenty-five miles vanished because Ben had retreated to the land behind the eye again. The children of violent men develop vivid powers of fantasy. Ben Meecham wanted to pray but he was afraid he was not worthy of prayer. But he was even more afraid that he had no belief in prayer. Yet he had belief in wonder and in the next twenty-five miles of black Carolina highway, he thought: Can a boy begin a prayer with the hatred of his father in his heart? Can that boy walk up to the altar of G.o.d and can he lay that hatred out? Can he spew his hate and tell his story? Can he tell about beatings and humiliations? Can he tell of the Marine who stormed the beaches of his childhood? Can he look into the eye of G.o.d and spit into that purest source of light for engendering his soul in the seed of a father who did not know the secret of tenderness, a father who loved in strange, undecipherable ways, a father who did not know how to love, a father who did not know how to try?

And what would this G.o.d be like, this G.o.d of Ben Meecham, this G.o.d that Ben was losing fast and barely believed in? In the privacy of the next hundred miles, Ben thought about the kind of G.o.d he would approach, that the G.o.d would have to look a certain way, and in his mind Ben began to a.s.semble the G.o.d he would speak to about his father. This would be the G.o.d of Ben Meecham: Ben would give Him the sweetness of Lillian, the dark, honest eyes of Arrabelle, the soft virility of Mr. Dacus, the birthmark of Pinkie on his throat, and Ogden Loring's upcountry drawl. Ben would give him the shoulders of Virgil Hedgepath, the innocence of Karen, the spoon and tears of Mary Anne, the high-pitched laugh of Sammy, Matt's intensity, and the loyalty of the Gray. And Ben would put this G.o.d on a street like River Street and he would have this G.o.d lift his voice in the holy song of Toomer. The hands of this G.o.d would be bright with flowers that would never die and this G.o.d would sing and stutter and limp along an alleyway and pa.s.s judgment in the land beside the river. He would hold mercy in a bouquet of azaleas and he would listen to Ben.

On the sixtieth mile, Ben could see this G.o.d as he crossed the Savannah River into Georgia. He could see him in the canvas of his eye, in the brilliant kingdom of his eye. This G.o.d was leaning back against the wall of Hobie's restaurant dazzling the universe with the beauty of Toomer's song. Ben would interrupt this G.o.d and this G.o.d would not mind.

And can one boy who has said ten thousand times in secret monologues, "I hate you. I hate you," as his father pa.s.sed him, can this boy approach this singing G.o.d and can he look into the eye of G.o.d and confess this sin and have that G.o.d say to him in the thunder that is perfect truth that the boy has not come to talk to him about the hatred of his father, but has come to talk about mysteries that only G.o.ds can interpret, that only G.o.ds can translate? Can there be a translation by this G.o.d all strong and embarra.s.sed, all awkward and kind? Can he smile as he says it? How wonderful the smile of G.o.d as he talks to a boy. And the translation of a boy screaming "I hate you. I hate you" to his father who cannot hear him would be simple for such a G.o.d. Simple, direct, and transferable to all men, all women, all people of all nations of the earth.

But Ben knew the translation and he let the G.o.d off with a smile, let him go back to his song, and back to his flowers on River Street. In the secret eye behind his eyes, in Ben's true empire, he heard and saw and knew.

And for the flight-jacketed boy on the road to Atlanta, he filled up for the first time, he filled up even though he knew the hatred would return, but for now, he filled up as if he would burst. Ben Meecham filled up on the road to Atlanta with the love of his father, with the love of Santini.

A Biography of Pat Conroy.

Pat Conroy (b. 1945) is one of America's most acclaimed and widely read authors and the New York Times bestselling writer of ten novels and memoirs, including The Water Is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, and South of Broad.

Conroy was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Growing up as the first of seven children in a military family, Conroy moved twenty-three times before he turned eighteen, constantly switching schools as a result. His father, a Chicago-born pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps, was physically and emotionally abusive to his children, an experience that colored much of Conroy's writing. The Great Santini (1976) in particular drew from many painful elements of Conroy's childhood, a fact that caused friction within his family and played a role in his parents' divorce as well as in Conroy's own divorce from his first wife, Barbara.

In 1963, after graduating high school, Conroy enrolled in the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. His experience at the Citadel provided the basis for his first book, The Boo (1970), as well as his novel The Lords of Discipline (1980) and his memoir My Losing Season (2002). The Lords of Discipline stirred up controversy for exposing incidents of racism and s.e.xism at the Citadel, though the resulting rift between Conroy and the school would later heal. The Citadel awarded Conroy an honorary degree and he delivered its commencement address in 2001.

After graduating from the Citadel, Conroy took a job as a school teacher in an impoverished community on Daufuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina. He was fired after one year for personal differences with the school's administration, including his refusal to abide by the school's practice of corporal punishment. His book The Water Is Wide (1972), which was honored by the National Education a.s.sociation, was largely based on his experiences.

In the 1980s, Conroy moved from South Carolina to Atlanta, and then to Rome, Italy, after marrying his second wife, Lenore. While living in Rome, he wrote The Prince of Tides (1986), about a former football player's tragic upbringing and its effect on his family. The novel, which has sold more than five million copies worldwide, drove a wedge between Conroy and his sister, Carol, on whom many sections of the novel were based. In 1991, the book was made into a major motion picture starring Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte that was nominated for seven Academy Awards. After publis.h.i.+ng his fourth novel, Beach Music, in 1997, Conroy married his third wife, Ca.s.sandra King, who is the author of four novels. Since their marriage, he has written the memoir My Losing Season (2002), The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life (2004) with Suzanne Williamson Pollak, South of Broad (2009), and the collection of essays My Life in Books (2010).

Conroy was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2004 and won the Outstanding Author Award from the Southeast Library a.s.sociation in 2006. He currently lives on Fripp Island, South Carolina.

The wedding photo of Don and Peg Conroy (nee Peek), taken in 1945. Pat was born later that year, the first of seven children.

Conroy feeding birds with his mother, Peg, in San Juan Capistrano, California, in 1948. He would later credit her with inspiring his love of language.

Pat, Peg, and Pat's younger sister Carol, around 1950. The Prince of Tides featured a character, the poet Savannah Wingo, which was based on Carol.

Conroy's 1957 school picture, taken when he was about twelve years old. Because his father was in the military, Conroy changed schools often as a child.

In 1963, Conroy captained the basketball team as a senior at Beaufort High School in Beaufort, South Carolina. Conroy's high school English teacher, Eugene Norris, introduced him to the author Thomas Wolfe, who would later serve as a literary inspiration for Conroy.

Conroy's 1964 semester report card from the Citadel. His only A for the semester was in comparative literature-a grade that foreshadowed his considerable skill as an author.

Conroy's school picture from 1967 while studying at the Citadel. In The Lords of Discipline he wrote candidly about the authoritarianism of military school.

The Conroy family in the summer of 1969. Front row: Peg, Tim, Tom, Donald. Back row: Jim, Kathy, Pat, Carol Ann, Mike.

The schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, where Pat taught for a year, an experience that inspired his book The Water Is Wide.

Conroy's mother, Peg, and the actor Jon Voight on the set of Conrack, the 1974 feature film adapted from The Water Is Wide. The movie opened to wide critical acclaim.

Conroy and his first wife, Barbara, delivering copies of The Water Is Wide to children on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, in the mid- to late-1970s. The book was based on Conroy's experience teaching elementary school students on the island for a year after graduating from college.

Conroy with his daughters in the 1980s.

Conroy with his mentor and former high school English teacher, Eugene Norris, in 1990. Norris introduced Conroy to The Catcher in the Rye, to this day one of his favorite books. The two remained close for years and Conroy delivered a eulogy at Norris's funeral.

Pat and Ca.s.sandra King on the day of their wedding in 1998. Ca.s.sandra is a bestselling author of four novels, including Queen of Broken Hearts and The Same Sweet Girls.

Pat and Ca.s.sandra look over a sc.r.a.pbook doc.u.menting his life and career in June 2010.

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