Hotty Toddy, Part VI: The Cream and the Crack

From a museum housing a few twisted Southern Gothic sculptures we went to the home of the man without whom there would be no Southern Gothic: William Faulkner. Heck, even the assonant name of his home drips with Southern grandeur, corruption, and mystery.

I'd wanted to see Rowan Oak ever since high school, after reading "The Bear" and "Barn Burning" and "A Rose for Emily", and hearing Ms. Miriam Mars (then Long, now no Long-er) teach me and my classmates of the author's fictive families; and later in college, after reading "That Evening Sun Go Down" and As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury and Sanctuary, and hearing Dr. (can't remember his name) regale me and my classmates with tales the author's peculiar eccentricities. The man was no mere Nobel Prize-winning author; the man was a legend. All my English teachers (high-school, community-college, and university alike) deified and worshipped him to such a level that Faulkner would have been disgusted. Alas, he would have been disgusted with me, too, for I've romanticized the man as much as my teachers have.

Nothing de-mysticizes a man, though, as much as a trip through his house, and this axiom holds true--up to a point--for Faulkner as well. We saw the kitchen where he ate, the bed where he slept (with a marker stating, "Faulkner Slept Here"), the table (and wallpaper) where he wrote, and the books that he read--though I couldn't read the titles as they were too far away in the roped-off bedrooms, which just goes to show you that as educational an experience as this was, that Rowan Oak is a museum, not just a house, further romanticizing the notion of author as legend and celebrity, untouchable--in this case quite literally, keeping us at arms' length, all--intentionally or not--further perpetuating the aura of the South's exclusivity.

Adding to the legendary allure of Rowan Oak are occasional reports of a ghost--allegedly Faulkner himself--walking the grounds and writing on the wall of study, where he once in life scribbled down notes and outlines of his novel The Reivers in order to keep track of all his plot machinations. My son asked one of the tour guides of this ghost, and the guide told him that though he'd never seen nor heard him, those that had observed the specter had seen him in the study. We looked as closely as we could, but we neither heard nor saw the spook. Penny tried to take a few pictures of the room, so we could inspect them later for any evidence of supernatual skullduggery, but--for some reason--her camera stopped working. Just in that room. Hmm.

Still, the more I saw of Faulkner's home, the less I viewed him as a god sitting atop Mount Rowan Oak, and the more I saw of him as a man, a husband, a father: looking at his daughter's room and seeing the radio he bought her for Christmas one year; looking at his wife's bedroom and seeing the air-conditioner that she bought and had installed the day after Faulkner's funeral (for he refused to allow air-conditioning in his house). Here was a man whose genius not only left a prominent mark upon literature, but in fact created an entire sub-genre of fiction, a man whose books have had a lasting effect upon Southern society and its perception; yet, at his home, here was a man.

Leaving the house, we walked back down the oak-tree framed path leading to (and now away from) Rowan Oak's front door. I looked back. When we first walked up to the mansion, the grand stateliness of the surroundings intimidated, the path a red-carpet walk announcing the greatness of its owner. Now, the view--while still impressive--seemed less daunting, as a bit of the aura and air of awe punctured by Faulkner's own humanity. Just as we were nearing the turn near the gate, Nicholas stopped us and asked us if we heard that. Heard what? He told us to listen. I did. All I heard was the hot wind rustling the leaves. His mother asked him what he heard, and he said he heard different people whispering. What they whispering? He said he didn't know, that the words sounded funny. What were the words? He told us heard whispers of Compson, Snopes, and Sartoris. We looked at him, and then I felt the wind again, and I looked back to the house. From behind the trees stood several people, looking our way. These folks were not behind us on our way out. We had not seen them in the house nor on the grounds.
I turned to Nicholas and asked him if those people were the ones he heard whisper, and he asked me, "What people?" I looked back at the house, at the path, and they were gone. Had they hidden behind the trees? I walked back up the path to look, but I saw no evidence to reveal that they were there or, if they were, where they had gone. I strode back to my family and told them of my fruitless efforts. Penny asked Nicholas if he had seen anyone. He hadn't. Penny said she hadn't either. Nicholas looked at me and then turned to Penny. "Mom," he said, "Dad's a looney."
Penny giggled, but she then reached over and felt my forehead.

"Maybe so," she said, "but maybe he just got a bit too hot. I think he needs something to cool him down. I think he needs some...ice cream!" The children thought so, too, as they cheered, both chanting "Ice cream! Ice cream!" Penny rememberd a sign advertising the dessert somewhere on Oxford square, so we drove there to find some. We parked at one corner, and Penny got out of the Jeep to go over and check, just to be sure. When she shut her door, Georgia started crying--both for her mommy and for ice cream. I explained to Georgia that Mommy would be right back, and that we'd then go get ice cream, but she wasn't buying it. Georgia wanted her Oompa-Loompa now!

Penny came back, and before she ever got to the door, she started shaking her head, an ominous portent of doom. Penny told us that the store didn't sell ice cream, and the ice cream sign was in fact atop the sign for Square Books...which didn't sell ice cream either. Georgia screamed. I drove around the square again looking for some place that sold ice cream, but none was to be found, and Georgia screamed. We drove through downtown Oxford and noticed a Baskin Robbins in the distance, and told Georgia we'd found the ice cream store, and she still screamed. We tried to find a road enabling us access to Baskin Robbins, but we were unsuccessful, and Georgia screamed. We got lost and misdirected, and Georgia screamed. We then happened upon a McDonald's, and though I argued against it because if we bought Georgia ice cream there and then found Baskin Robbins, then Georgia would want even more ice cream, demanding to hold the McDonald's cone as well as whatever else we bought her...we pulled in line at the drive-thru, and Georgia screamed. Finally, we bought her a vanilla cone, and she stopped screaming (though she whimpered in-between licks).

We were still determined to find that Baskin Robbins store. After thirty more minutes of fruitless driving, just as we were about to give up and go home to the Congo, Penny spooted a sno-cone/yogurt stand. It wasn't Baskin Robbins, but--to paraphrase Eddie Murhphy--even a plain, stale, dry cracker would taste like a sumptuous saltine to a hungry man. I parked the Jeep in front of the stand's adjacent umbrella-covered tables and benches as Penny and Nicholas ordered four rounds of dairy delights. They returned, and we decided that since Georgia had calmed down, to just sit there, relax, and enjoy the spoils of the hunt. A few minutes later, our moment of reverie evolved into one of jocularity. A man and his wife came to sit at the table in front of the Jeep, the man with his back do us. Every time the man--whose shorts rode low on his waist--bent to take a bite of his yogurt, we cracked up.
Soon, our laughter grew to uproarious levels, and the stand's customers noticed, turning their heads our way. We didn't want their suspicion or our laughter to alert or embareass the plumber in front of us, so we left, returned to the Congo, and readied ourselves for supper.