Truman Capote's Southern Years, 25th Anniversary Edition: Stories from a Monroeville Cousin

Chapter 5. The Carnival

S The Carnival I started writing when I was eight-out of the blue, uninspired by any example. I'd never known anyone who wrote; in fact, I knew few people who read. But the fact was, the onlyfour things that interested me were: reading books, going to the movies, tap dancing, and drawing pictures. Then one day I started writing, not knowing that I had chained myself for life to a novel but merciless master. . . . The most interesting writing I did during those days were the plain everyday observations that I recorded in myjournal. Long verbatim accounts ofoverheard conversations. Local gossip. A kind of reporting, a style of"seeing" and "hearing" that would later seriously influence me. ... "Truman Capote by Truman Capote" Vogue, December 1979 I suppose Truman and I were the luckiest children in Monroeville because one summer we convinced Jenny to build us our own private swimming pool in her side yard. We hadn't started out pestering her about the pool; it just came up kind of naturally. Monroeville had a community pool about a mile down the hill from Jenny's house. Truman, Nelle, and I rode our bicycles down the dusty hill, zigzagging around horse-drawn buggies and a few autos to get there. We could swim in the pool anytime we pleased. At least until Sook heard about this young boy, not much older than we were, getting hit by a car while riding his motorcycle through the little town of Peterman, a few miles north of Monroeville. She grieved over that boy even though she didn't know him. Sook got it in her head that we shouldn't be out in the street riding our bikes down to the pool, so she cried to Jenny, "That boy who got killed could have been our Buddy or Big Boy." Truman picked right up on this. He went on the north side ofthe house and staked out a pool halfthe size ofJenny's house. Not wanting to sacrifice any of her japonica bushes or flowers, and knowing that a pool would bring every child in Monroeville to her yard, Jenny wasn't the least bit interested in going through with this project. But after much begging and pleading by Sook, Truman, and me, Jenny softened , then gave in. She convinced her brother-in-law, Frank Salter, to dig the pool. Anybody would have to know Monroeville's red clay base to realize what a task Frank had ahead of him. Even digging with the sharpest pick, and shoveling until his face turned beet-red in the sun, he could barely make a dent in that cementlike earth. So little by little, the big pool became smaller and smaller, until the final product was only a little larger than a bathtub. When it was finally finished, cemented , and declared ready, we filled it with water from Jenny's flower hose. The neighborhood children flocked over, tracking red clay, leaves, and dirt into the pool when they jumped in, but it was a pool, nonetheless. Truman assigned Nelle the task ofcollecting money from anyone other than herself and me who wanted to swim. The children would come up with their nickels, pay Nelle, and she would write down their names in a book. They could leave, go home and return, and iftheir name was in the book they could swim again. While Jenny had Frank cornered to dig our pool, she also had him dig a small fish pool on the other side of the house. The Carnival She built a little garden around the pool and had a nice shady spot there under the pecan trees and wisteria vines. There weren't any goldfish locally, so she went to Mobile to a pet store to purchase fish for the pool. We kids would gather around the pool and watch the fish grow fat. They'd laze about, swim to the top, open their round mouths, and take food out of our fingers. We weren't the only ones who enjoyed the fish. Mrs. Ralls's yellow tomcat enjoyed those fish as much as we did. The cat would slip over to the round, shallow pool, hunker down on the side, and try to catch the fish with his paw. What he didn't catch and drag out on the bank he'd injure with his sharp paws. Jenny would see the fish...