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

Chapter 11. Arch

II Arch The world was afrightening place, yes, he knew: unlasting, what could beforever? or only what it seemed? rock corrodes, rivers freeze, fruit rots; stabbed, blood of black and white bleeds alike; trained parrots tell more truth than most, and who is lonelier: the hawk or the worm? . . . Grass and love are always greener. ... TRUMAN CAPOTE, Other Voices, Other Rooms There wasn't much love in Truman's early life. Being in the same family with him, I recognized early on that ours wasn't a family who lavished affection on anybody. It was a family that worked hard and pinched pennies, but even in hard times there was always a plate of food and a bed for those who needed it. . Truman had little love and attention from Lillie Mae, who had abandoned him. Arch, his father, wanted nothing to do with either Truman or Lillie Mae. So Truman had to look for love and family where he found it. Mostly it was Sook who showed us love. She hugged us, held us in her lap, and talked to us in our own language of childhood. As we reached our teenage years, Truman was at our farm on Drewry Road more and more during his summer vacations. There he found a substitute mother in my mother, Mary Ida, and perhaps a little of the father he sought in my father, Jennings. Mother let him sleep late or curl up with his books. Arch Daddy didn't make him work or do chores like I was expected to do. Truman wasn't going to sling down bitterweed in the cow pastures, slop through mud to feed the mules, dig fence-post holes, or chop firewood. No, at our house he acted like a guest or favored child, and that's how Mother and Daddy treated him. When the cook came to our house early in the morning, she and Mother would start picking vegetables in the garden right after breakfast. By nine o'clock they'd have them washed and cooking. We didn't have a lot of meat to eat, but occasionally had fried sowbelly or ham. Mostly we ate crowders and black-eyed peas, sweet corn, squash, okra, tomatoes , green beans, and cornbread. Mother would churn buttermilk, and we'd have sweet milk and buttermilk to drink. Truman loved eating at our house. He'd flatter Mother with "This is delicious, Mary Ida." After Lillie Mae divorced Arch and married Joe Capote, they took Truman to live with them in New York during the school year. Joe was a good and gentle man who tried to get close to Truman. He let Truman have everything he wanted and spent a fortune on him. He bought him the finest clothes, watches, and record players, took him on trips to Europe, and sent him to fine boarding schools. Truman was polite to Joe, but he was never really close to him. For whatever his reasons, he wouldn't let himself like Joe. While I never heard him try to cut Joe down in conversations, he was openly hostile to his own father, Arch. Truman had a long memory when it came to Arch. When Truman became famous, Arch tried to promote him with postcards that carried a picture of Truman, along with an explanation of him being Arch's son and how close they were. He arranged a big dinner in Mississippi, which Tru- 166 QII man agreed to attend. Many people bought tickets to hear Truman lecture. It was a fiasco. A roomful of irate people waited and waited for Truman, who never showed up. Arch finally had to refund their money. And when Arch died, his family held up the funeral for nearly a week thinking Truman would attend. They invited the press to cover Truman Capote coming to his "real" daddy's funeral. Truman didn't go and he didn't send flowers. Even after Arch and Lillie Mae's divorce, Arch maintained fairly close ties with Mother and Daddy. It probably had more to do with Arch wanting to show off some new automobile he'd acquired because he had "skunked" somebody out of it, or his relentless quest to get some of Daddy's money, which he never did, than with any real affection toward the family. Arch tried and tried to get Daddy to invest in one of his get-rich...