Robbie

Robbie

Uncle Robbie coming drunk from the shacksin the dead of night would drop by becauseour lights were on. His heavy boots landedone foot after the other, like some creaturefrom the swamp, which in a way he was.

"Ol' Robbie," my grandmother would say soon aswe heard his thuds and shuffes on the porch.My father, up quick, would open the door,"Go on home, Robbie, go on down the road.We're all here about to settle for the night."Or Robbie would turn the knob and let himself in,black-whiskered and bleary, rearing himself upfrom a slump, pulling up his pants by his belt buckle,trying to look more sober than he was.He'd catch my sister's eye and ask her, gentle-like,if she'd play the piano for him. He'd want us to singwhatever we wanted, Everly Brothers or Frankie Avalon,"Bye Bye Love, Bye Bye Happiness."I was an alto but went falsetto for that one,harmonizing with my sisters, the parlor air vibrating.

One night Robbie got my sister to look for musicto "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes." She found itin the bench, practiced it through, and then he sang it,repeating the first verse twice as if he'd rememberedall the verses, at least at one time,or as if he sang it in his head all the time.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,        And I will pledge with mine;Or leave a kiss within the cup        And I'll not ask for wine.

We sang then along with him, our girl voiceslight and whispery above his slippery tenor.He was drunk but we were too young to knowhow drunk. He kept his hands to himselfbehind his back, fist caught in a fist,and he did some leaning and swaying to the musicas a real singer would, getting into it. I feltalmost like crying, but I didn't. I don't know why.

"Go on home now, Robbie," my father would sayand give him his hat, and he'd straighten himselfup and walk out the door without a word.He'd walked a mile from the shacks on the black county roadwith no flashlight; and he'd walk a mile more to get hometo his own bed and his wife, my grandpa's sister,the one with the eye that twitched. "No wonder, with a manlike that to cook and clean for," my grandmother said,and then with more meaning and breath, "To put up with.""Sorry good-for-nothing jackleg," she muttered.All I knew is that he was a family embarrassment."Promise you'll never marry a drunk," my father said,when the door closed. My grandpa would say nothing.

It was years later that I put some things togetherfrom what my cousin said about Robbie and the shacks,from what my mother had said about his crazy-smartbeautiful daughter who was put on Bull Street,euphemism for the state asylum for the insane.Brown sack in his arms, green dollar or twoin his pocket, he'd visit the shacks, one dollar to the fatheror mother, the other to a young brown girl,some pieces of bright colored candy afterward. All liquored and loved up (my grandmother's words),he'd land on the porch and want to sing Ben Jonson's words.

"Too educated for his own good," my grandmotherhumphed, knowing she'd nailed it. "Brains ain't everything."My grandfather stood with his back to us, his handsfirm on the dark wood knob-ends of his supper table chair,his head and neck and shoulders in the postureof patience or defeat or endurance, I never knew which.