THE LAUNCH
15
ONE DAY DURING the summer when Raff was preparing to enter his senior year in high school, Cyrus Semmes called his sister on the telephone.
"Marcie," he said, "Anne and I were wondering if you folks might join us for dinner sometime soon. I've got some important family business I want to discuss with you and Ainesley."
"Well, sure, Cy. We'd love to come anytime, you know that. We always look forward to coming home and seeing you and the family. What kind of business are we talking about?"
"I'll tell you when you get down here. Can you manage this Sunday?"
"Ainesley has some kind of fishing trip planned for the morning, I think, but sure, you bet, we'll be there. Will the usual time be okay?"
"Yes. And be sure to bring Scooter with you. Can you do that for certain?"
As she hung up, her mind was racing. Scooter, for sure. Cy wants to talk about Scooter. Cy's in good health, we're not going to discuss a will here. The girls are gone, and there's space, but he won't be inviting us to live at Marybelle. He doesn't want Ainesley anywhere closer than Clayville, and he isn't going to offer him some kind of a better job. So it must be Scooter.
Marcia thought some more about the current status of the Mobile Semmes family, and what Cyrus might be thinking. Their father, Jonathan, had passed away five years before. As a World War II veteran, Jonathan had been laid to rest with honors in the military section of Magnolia Cemetery, beneath a simple gravestone designating his branch of the service and date of death. This monument meant more to the Semmeses than any mausoleum with stone angels and Byronic epitaphs. There were rifle-fire salutes and a presentation to Elizabeth of the American flag ritually folded after it was taken off his casket.
At dinner this evening, Cyrus soon focused his attention on Raff, causing Marcia to think, I guessed right. It's Scooter. Her excitement grew throughout the meal.
Her guess was further confirmed when Cyrus looked up from his okra and Cajun jambalaya, turned to the teenager, and said, "Scooter, you're almost grown up now. I'm very proud of you, son. Have you given any thought to what you want to do with the rest of your life?"
Raff's response was immediate. His plans had already been explained to Marcia and Ainesley during the previous year.
"What I want to do, if I can go to college, is be a park ranger, or maybe a naturalist, or maybe a teacher somewhere. Something that would let me work outdoors a lot, you know. I think I'm pretty good at that kind of thing."
Marcia had planned otherwise. She had decided to pressure her son onto a more ambitious course. It would be for his own good, she reasoned. It was his birthright. He would likely outgrow his boyhood preoccupations and aim for an adult existence more appropriate to his social class. Raff's achievements in the Boy Scouts had pleased her no end, and she had praised every step in rank he had earned. The strong entrepreneurial spirit he displayed in that organization, she believed, presaged Raff's entry into one of the professions that count in the world of the Mobile Semmeses. This time, however, in order to keep the evening's harmony undisturbed, she chose to remain silent.
Ainesley felt no such restraint.
"Marcia and I have different feelings about this, Cyrus. I told Scooter a dozen times if I told him once that there's nothing wrong with wanting to stay outdoors. I'd sure do the same myself if I didn't have to spend my life in a lousy hardware store or some such thing. But you can't make any real money that way. If I was Raff I'd try for a job in a big business operation somewhere and work my way up. I think he could find something real good in Mobile, maybe, if you helped get him started, Cyrus."
Marcia tried to head Ainesley off with a frown and slight head-shaking, but he was not to be stopped. Raff was his son too.
"Another thing that's been on my mind a lot is the military. A man can find a good life there. You won't be rich, but you get real security, like Harry and Virginia over there at Eglin Air Force Base. Course, if Scooter went that way, he ought to be darn sure he gets into Officer Training School."
Everyone seated there knew there was no way the Codys could manage much more than keeping the pickup truck and small box house they owned in Clayville. They might help out with college a little, maybe even take out a mortgage on the house. They were hoping that Raff might win a scholarship in a college somewhere. Maybe he could help by getting a job on the side or in the summer. Or get a loan. With these possibilities in mind, they had assured Raff that one way or the other he'd be okay. As far as they were concerned, he was going to go to college.
After listening to Ainesley, Cyrus said, smiling, "Let's have some coffee and, if you'd like, some dessert, maybe a little of the new liqueur I like. Scooter, I want you to go in the library and wait a little while. I have something I need to talk over privately with your mom and dad. I think we're going to have some of that pecan pie you like so much. I'll send in a piece and some cocoa while you wait."
Raff got up, ambled out the double doors of the dining room, and proceeded down the hall. He paused to examine the oil painting of his great-grandfather Joshua Semmes, resplendent in a formal World War I army uniform, the silver oak leaves of a lieutenant colonel glinting on its shoulder tabs. Raff went on into the library, flicked on the light switches, and perched on the horsehair sofa next to the fireplace. In a few minutes Ellie, the family cook, brought in a tray bearing cocoa and pecan pie. After his dessert, Raff stood up and started exploring the library. His eye fell on a row of old National Geographic magazines, and he pulled out five at random. Returning to the sofa, he began to flip through the pages. Bhutan, Asia's hidden kingdom. Romania's royal art treasures. Metallic-blue Morpho butterflies, flying jewels of the tropics. Louis Pasteur and the secret world of bacteria. The amazing wildlife of the Brazilian Pantanal. Throughout, marvelous blazing pictures of wild animals in their natural habitat. Wildlife photography, he thought, now, that's something I'd like to do. There were plenty of good subjects right there at Nokobee. And not far from Nokobee the three-hundred-square-mile swamp of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta sheltered bear and deer. It was, people said, an almost impenetrable jungle.
After about another hour Cyrus returned with Marcia and Ainesley. They drew up chairs in front of Raff. He began to feel nervous. Had they learned something about his forbidden trips to Nokobee and the Chicobee? Was this going to be an interrogation about his lies and criminal activity?
"We've been talking about you, Scooter, and your future," Cyrus said. "We're just wondering. Looking beyond college, have you ever given any thought to the possibility of law school? You know, like I went to at the University of Alabama?"
Raff felt relieved. He wasn't about to be arraigned and prosecuted after all.
"I never thought about it," he said. "I don't think I want to be a lawyer or anything like that."
"Well, now, let's look at this a little bit," Cyrus continued. "What you probably don't realize is that with a law degree you don't have to be a lawyer if you don't want to. You can use what you learn at law school to do a lot of other things. You can get a high-paying job in business. You can even go into government. You can get a commission in the military. Your dad is right about that one, Raff. And you'd be some form of adviser or legal administrator, and never have to go into combat if there's a war."
Ainesley was nodding his head and started to speak. "I've been saying to you, son--"
Cyrus stopped him by raising his hand. Then he smiled and waggled his finger.
"And here's something else you might like right away. You can work in an environmental organization, doing work on things like parks and wildlife. In other words, you'd have all kinds of options with a law degree. I know you'd do real well and be very happy."
"I really hadn't thought about it that way," Raff said. "I guess..."
Cyrus, the practiced negotiator, moved in quickly. "All right, then, I'm going to make you an offer. You're going to have to agree it's a really good offer, but it's got a condition. Here it is: if you'll promise to go to law school after you graduate from college, I'll pay all your expenses through any decent college you can get into and then I'll pay for the law school on top of that."
Raff sat for a moment, stunned. Then he pushed his hands down to sit up as straight as he could, causing two of the National Geographic magazines lying next to him to slide off and crash to the floor. He bent over to pick them up, but thought better of it and sat back, looking in wonderment at his wise and powerful Uncle Cyrus sitting right there smiling at him. He turned to glance at Ainesley and Marcia. They were smiling too, and slowly nodding their heads. Take the offer, son, they were signaling. Take the offer.
Cyrus put on a slightly disappointed expression and said, "Well, I don't expect you to make up your mind right now if you don't want to. It is a really big decision, I know. Why don't you take a little time, maybe even go on home, and let me know when you're good and ready?"
Raff stayed put. He was immobile for another minute, licking his lips, looking down at the floor, his mind churning. He didn't want to let the moment get away from him. He'd had fantasies about something like this. There had been a rumor around Clayville that Lake Nokobee and the Nokobee tract might go on the market and be turned into a housing project. In his daydreams about that he was a hero of the environment. He was the governor of Alabama who declares the land to be Nokobee State Park. He was a rich man who buys the whole property and decrees that it be kept pristine forever. He was president of The Nature Conservancy who leads a successful crusade to save the property.
Now he saw that something approaching one of these dreams might just become a reality.
So he looked up and blurted out, "I don't need any time, Uncle Cyrus. I'm really grateful, and I'm gonna pay you back too. I'll work in the summer and maybe I'll be able to get some kind of part-time job while I'm at school."
Cyrus shook his head, his smile warm now. "I don't think you understood me, Scooter. I didn't say I'll arrange a loan. I didn't say anything about your paying me back. I said I was making you an offer. You don't have to pay me back one cent, anytime. I wouldn't let you anyway, because I want you to give your whole attention to your studies and your career later on. I want you to become the fine man I know you're capable of being, and I want you to bring credit to our family."
With that, he stood up, stretched his shoulders and back. "It's late. Why don't you go on home with your mom and dad, and we'll all talk about this again soon? But let me say, I'm really pleased with your decision." Cyrus had no intention of giving Raff wiggle room. The matter was settled.
On the ride back to Clayville, Ainesley said to Raff, "Good thing you took that right away, Scooter, before he changed his mind."
Marcia said gently, "Now, Ainesley, you just shut up. This is the best thing that ever happened to Scooter, and to you and me too, to be truthful about it."
Marcia was barely able to suppress her emotions. She was almost hysterically happy. The past hour had been one of enormous personal significance. She recognized that this was about more than just Raff's education. Cyrus had opened the door and invited Raff--and her too, by extension--to rejoin the Mobile Semmeses. They were going to stay in the class of their birth.
A little farther down the night road, the pickup truck ran over a large rattlesnake.
Ainesley exclaimed, "Damn, did you see that big ol' snake I ran over?" Ainesley was in euphoria too. Got his son in college, killed a rattlesnake, all in one evening.
Less than ten minutes later, the pickup, weaving slightly, hit a stray dog, flinging its body into the weeds along the roadside ditch.
"Hot damn!" Ainesley exclaimed. "I do think tonight we are goin' to break the Alabama record for roadkill."
Ainesley was drunk. He'd been a mite too pleased with the exotic taste of the Chateau Gruaud-Larose served at Marybelle, and Cyrus's offer had raised him one notch higher to giddiness.
But Raff paid scarce attention to rattlesnake, dog, or his parents' remarks. His gaze was fixed on the road ahead brought up by the truck's high beams cutting through the night. His mind had lifted and traveled on down that blacktop path. He was bound elsewhere now, far away.