Every Day by the Sun Page 8

  Dean had agreed to look after Rowan Oak in the meantime. He moved into the house and within a few days started a marathon poker game that lasted two weeks. The gambling den was in William’s upstairs bedroom. The boys shoved his double bed up against the windows and set a round breakfast table in the middle of the room. When William and Estelle returned, Dean moved back into his room at Maud and Murry’s new house on South Lamar.

  Everyone was home for the holidays. Shortly after Christmas, William wrote Bennett Cerf, the cofounder of Random House, “Xmas was quiet here. Estelle and the children are with her mother in town and so I am alone in the house. I passed Christmas with a three foot back log on the fire, and a bowl of eggnog and a pipe and Tom Jones.”

  WILLIAM’S LIFE AT the beginning of 1932 would test every ounce of faith in his talent and hope for success. He finished Light in August in early spring. Family lore has it that his relationship with Estelle had deteriorated so badly that one afternoon as he drove with her to the square, she threw his just-completed manuscript out the car window. He parked at the curbside and went about methodically picking up the invaluable sheets of paper. Estelle did not help him.

  They were again in desperate financial straits; they had no credit; they were overdrawn at the bank. At one point, William took out the following ad in the Commercial Appeal and Oxford Eagle: “I will not be responsible for any debt incurred or bills made, or notes or checks signed by Mrs. William Faulkner or Mrs. Estelle Oldham Faulkner.”

  To nudge Faulkner into paying his bill at Neilson’s Department Store, Will Lewis, Sr., requested that he sign some postdated checks. William wrote back, “I’m not going to sign these checks anymore than I ever signed the checks and notes you have filled out and sent to me in the past. Attached is my own check for ten. I will send more on the account when I can. I make no promise as to when that will be.… If this dont suit you, the only alternative I can think of is, in the old Miltonic phrase, sue and be damned.… You may even get an autographed book. That will be worth a damn sight more than my autograph on a check dated ten months from now.”*

  Hollywood came galloping to the rescue. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer offered William a screenwriting contract worth five hundred dollars a week, he borrowed three dollars from his uncle John to pay Western Union to wire his acceptance. He was to begin work on May 7, 1932. MGM sent him a prepaid ticket and a small advance. He was not happy about leaving Oxford but he had no choice. When he left for Los Angeles, he asked Dean to watch over Rowan Oak and to care for Estelle and the children. Each brother worried about the other. William was concerned about Dean’s lack of direction, while Dean worried that the screenwriting job, while a necessity, would interfere with William’s fiction writing.

  Sometime after graduation, Dean became determined to try his own hand at writing. He asked William for advice and instruction. Though Maud saved hundreds of pages of Dean’s handwritten (occasionally typewritten) stories, none are dated. On several of them William made corrections. He must have told Dean that the first step in learning to write was to build a vocabulary. To that end, he sat down and wrote a list of sixty-four words, picking them out of the air.

  The last word, brusque, hints that someone’s patience was wearing thin. The list was printed in William’s hand up to the word bemused. From then on, beginning with banshee, the list is written in cursive (Dean’s hand). Perhaps this was when Dean decided—as he sat beside William taking dictation, stumped by the spelling of unknown words, words as mysterious and sad as the whistle of an Illinois Central freight train—that he would become not a writer but a painter.

  All three of William’s brothers tried their hands at writing. John published Men Working, Dollar Cotton, and a Gold Medal paperback series called Uncle Good’s Girls. Jack wrote short stories—many, many short stories—which he submitted to only one magazine: Collier’s. When Collier’s rejected each and every one, he never made a submission to any other magazine. The year Collier’s folded so did Jack’s writing career.

  Possibly because of Murry’s nagging that he learn a trade, Dean took a correspondence art course offered by Modern Illustrating. The talent he had inherited from Maud and her mother, Lelia Dean Swift, can be seen in the advertisements he drew as art assignments. He had a gifted hand and eye, as did William and John. Maud saved many of his drawings, as well as the art lesson books. Almost all of the sketches Dean did on his own were of female subjects. He worked in pen and ink, pastels and pencil.

  Added to Dean’s doubts about the future was his concern for his father’s health. Murry had not been well. His back bothered him, and the doctors thought it might be the result of an old injury. He drank heavily. One evening shortly after he and Maud had moved into the new house, Murry, well into his cups, lurched into the parlor, settled himself in his favorite chair, and started to turn on the Victrola when he heard the unmistakable sound of a record breaking. He stood up, threw the chair cushion to the floor, and stared at the padding in the chair. On it lay his recording of “Beautiful Dreamer,” deep cracks in the black disc. Only one person could have, or would have, placed the record in his chair. Murry did not take another drink—ever.

  Early in August 1932, his health seemed to improve, and he took up his familiar habit of sitting with Maud on the front gallery in the late afternoon. On Saturday, August 6, Jack arrived for an unexpected visit. Murry and Maud were delighted to see him. They talked for a while, then retired. That night Murry suffered a heart attack and died in his sleep. He was not quite sixty-two. The next morning, Dean telephoned John in the Mississippi delta and William in Los Angeles. The Falkner family began to gather.

  On Monday, August 8, 1932, a funeral service was held in the new house, conducted by the Methodist minister. It was short and private, with few flowers and no music. Murry’s casket was placed on a bier in the parlor in front of the double French doors that opened onto the gallery. He was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery beside his father, the Young Colonel. Dean was crippled by grief. William had arrived from California and as the eldest male Faulkner had taken over as head of the clan. It was his responsibility to provide financial and emotional security not just for Maud and Dean but for the family. He served as executor of Murry’s will. Maud was to inherit the estate until her remarriage or death, then Murry’s sons were to divide the property among themselves. The will stated “Remember at all times that you are Brothers, and deal justly by each other.” It ended “My signature is known, and no witness is needed.”

  As a relief and distraction from grief, William invited Dean and Maud to accompany him when he returned to Los Angeles. Late in the fall of 1932, they made a three-week trip to the West Coast. Estelle was pregnant and could not travel. William showed them Hollywood, no doubt taking them to his favorite restaurant, Musso and Frank, and introducing them to Culver City. For the most part William found the dull, anonymous work of screenwriting to be defeating, and he longed to return to writing narrative fiction in his own distinctive voice and style. William’s salary was near the bottom of director Howard Hawks’s pay scale. But this steady income during the Depression allowed him to support his now-extended family and keep up house payments and utilities for Rowan Oak.

  Even though Maud had had her fill of Hollywood after the first week, Dean loved every minute of his stay. One of my favorite stories about William’s time in California took place that fall. Hawks took William and Clark Gable (and perhaps Dean) on a dove shoot in the Imperial Valley. Gable, whom William had never met, brought along his .410 over and under, a shotgun that William coveted on sight.

  As they drove into the valley, Hawks began talking about books and authors. Clark Gable listened in silence. At last he said, “Mr. Faulkner, who would you say are the best living writers?” William replied, “Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, John Dos Passos, and myself.”

  “Oh,” said Gable. “Do you write, Mr. Faulkner?”

  “Yes, Mr. Gable,” William replied. “What do you do?”

&nb
sp; *I’m glad Phil Stone never knew how right he was. He would not believe the changes Oxford has suffered in part due to Pappy’s fame: We were “discovered” just before the turn of the twenty-first century, when several national publications listed Oxford as one of the top one hundred small towns to retire in—or just die in—rising to the top fifty, and then the top ten. Oxford was deemed the epitome of traditional southern charm, with swings on porches, hundred-year-old oak trees lining streets, picket fences, flower beds in every front yard, and its own literary icon. The developers discovered Pappy was salable—though I doubt if one in ten of second-home Oxonians has read him or intends to. When USA Today listed Oxford as one of the top five retirement communities in the country, the rush was on. Developers couldn’t get their cookie-cutter subdivisions built fast enough. Some nine hundred units were erected, with something for everybody: McMansions and million-dollar condos for the rich, real rich, and wannabe rich. The fine old houses that Pappy had known vanished into dust and rubble overnight, their big old trees with them. His prediction that the Snopeses would conquer was all too true. Meanwhile, his likeness cast in bronze by sculptor Bill Beckwith sits on a bench in front of city hall, available 24/7 to every tourist with a three-dollar throwaway camera who wants to have his picture taken with a Nobel Prize winner—old what’s-his-name. One Christmas, some fool put a Santa Claus hat on him.

  *His great-aunt Mrs. Alabama McLean, the youngest child of the Old Colonel.

  *Many years later, when Nannie loaned me her copy of The Sound and the Fury, she offered excellent advice: “All you need do is think like an idiot, Lamb, and you will understand the novel. Trust the man who wrote the book.”

  *Lewis, a man learned and wise, framed the letter. For some time it decorated the office wall at Neilson’s Department Store.

  IN LATE OCTOBER 1932, WILLIAM, MAUD, AND DEAN RETURNED to Oxford, where William settled, no doubt gratefully, into the quiet routine of life away from Hollywood.

  William and Estelle’s daughter Jill was born June 24, 1933, and he celebrated the happy event by buying a bright red, powerful, luxurious four-seat Waco C cabin cruiser. He took flying lessons from the top pilot in Memphis—Vernon Omlie—and introduced Dean to him. Dean soon was spending more and more time flying with William. Sometimes, on the spur of the moment, the always impulsive Dean would invite the adoring boys loitering on the sidewalk outside the Falkner home to go with him to Memphis, where William indulged them with flyovers of the Mississippi River.

  Dean was at loose ends. At twenty-five he had finished college and was living at home with his mother. Unfortunately, the only job he could find—pumping gas at the Gulf Station across the street from their house—kept him under Maud’s nose. Each day she grew more dependent on him, and he felt more and more responsible for her. William could see Dean being smothered by Maud and offered him a means of escape.

  Ever since William had bought the Waco, Dean had been begging him for flying lessons. Now was the time. William asked Vernon Omlie to take Dean on as a student. The lessons soon began, but a day in Memphis three times a week was not long enough, or far enough from home, to break Maud’s hold on her youngest son.

  By the fall William was urging Dean to fly longer trips whenever possible. In November, William, Dean, and Vernon flew to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, then to Washington, and on to New York. They checked into the Algonquin for a week. Dean was a long way from pumping gas and going home for lunch with his mother.

  Vernon Omlie knew a gifted student when he saw one. Dean had an instinctive touch at the controls and an athlete’s self-confidence and ability to carry out split-second decisions. He adored flying and often remarked that he would rather fly than eat.

  Wacos were a popular aircraft at the time. The Waco Pilot, a trade journal published by the manufacturer, convinced William to endorse the plane. A black-and-white photograph shows him grinning (he was the only person I’ve ever known who could grin from ear to ear without showing a single tooth) while standing next to the cockpit of his newly purchased Waco cabin cruiser. Known as “the Cadillac of the air,” it had luxurious leather seats that were so comfortable that seasoned passengers often fell asleep. Early in the spring of 1934, William gave the plane to Dean, enabling him to join Vernon Omlie’s flying service, Mid-South Airways, as a partner and charter pilot.

  In June, Dean moved into Vernon’s McLean Avenue apartment in Memphis. He did not move in the normal sense of the word but instead commuted to work between Oxford and Memphis. He by no means had made a complete break with Maud. His clothes and belongings, for the most part, remained at 510 South Lamar. Every three or four days he flew home to spend the night.

  In Memphis, Vernon’s lifestyle provided a convenient and comfortable arrangement for Dean. His wife, Phoebe, a pilot and wing walker, spent most of her time in Washington, D.C., a hub of charter flight activity. Thus Vernon lived virtually alone in his large two-bedroom apartment. His maid, Exxie Hardiman, came every morning at seven o’clock to fix breakfast and “look after Mr. Vernon.” She was, perhaps, the only female who would put up with the constant flow of unexpected guests and late-night parties. Dean fit right in. Soon, Exxie was as fond of him as she was of Vernon.

  That same month Dean soloed in an open-cockpit Waco F. Flying was getting to be so routine it was like having a regular job, only better. Also in June, his first cousin Sue Falkner introduced him to my mother, a beautiful twenty-one-year-old brunette with clear blue eyes from Etta, a hamlet out in the county. A year before, Louise Hale and Sue had become friends at “the W,” the Mississippi College for Women. Now both were working as secretaries at the Works Project Administration office in Oxford.

  Louise was five foot six—almost as tall as Dean—with a willowy figure. She carried herself with the grace and insouciance of a high fashion model. An off-the-rack ten-dollar suit looked like a Coco Chanel on her. This cool outer demeanor contrasted perfectly with the “real” Louise, a fun-loving, uncomplicated woman with an easy laugh. Blessed with an even disposition, she rarely let obnoxious people upset her. She simply ignored unpleasant situations until they went away. She could have been the prototype for Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”: generous to a fault in her approval of mankind. She was game for anything new and exciting. An excellent listener, she drew people to her. Armed with an instinct for reticence, she knew when to keep her pretty mouth shut.

  She also was a proud woman, independent-minded, and, like Maud, determined to be self-supporting. Louise held a variety of jobs, from taking photographs of children posing with Santa at a Memphis department store (when she had never taken a picture with any camera except a Brownie) to working as a secretary for an Ole Miss psychology professor (when she could not type or take shorthand). She was hired for her willingness to work and her unfailing charm.

  The attraction between Louise and Dean was instantaneous on both sides. Their courtship roared to life. At the end of a week, Louise and Sue hitchhiked to Memphis, and Dean took Louise up for her first flight. The more loops and stalls he put the aircraft through, the better she liked it. From that moment on she loved flying, and Dean loved her all the more for that. They had dinner at the Peabody at Vernon’s favorite table near the bandstand. Dean danced with both girls. Louise had never had a better time.

  The next week, Dean flew to Oxford to see her. She was in the WPA office when she heard the Waco as it dipped low over town. Maud heard it, too. This was a signal for her to drive to the airfield south of town and pick up Dean. Each of the women in his life thought he had come just for her. Neither had met her rival. Yet.

  In my father’s logbooks the entries for June 22, 24, and 28 indicate that Dean had recorded flight times of 120 minutes, 120 minutes, and 115 minutes without stating a destination. Two hours was the approximate time of a round-trip flight between Memphis and Oxford. I don’t think he was going to see his mother.

  He invited Louise to come along for a Fourth of July air show in Sikeston, Missouri. She flew
with him in the open cockpit. Vernon flew the Waco cabin. Pilots came from all over the country. It was the biggest show ever. Around midnight, when everyone was still partying, a tremendous storm blew up. The pilots rushed out of the hotel and begged rides to the airport so they could tie the planes down. Louise sat wedged between Dean and Vernon, sharing their concern that a plane might be damaged by the wind. No planes were destroyed, and the next day, the air show drew an enormous crowd. Dean and Vernon made more money than they’d ever earned at a single performance.

  In the weeks to come, Dean recorded nine July entries that I am sure represent round trips from Memphis to Oxford. In August, when he had to stay at the hangar and wait for charters, Sue and Louise traveled to Memphis. They would spend afternoons at the airport, just sitting and talking, or maybe helping Dean wash the planes or change the oil. When they got to Vernon’s apartment, they would find the place already filled with people and a party in progress. Often, Vernon would be throwing a “solo party” for one of his flying students. Pilots from around the country were his guests whenever they were in town.

  On several afternoons that August, William drove to the Memphis airport bringing Estelle and Jill, a little over a year old, and Jill’s nurse, Narcissus. “Airports were hot,” Louise recalled, “and we would put up chairs in the shade of the hangar. While Dean and Omlie took up passengers, Narcissus nursed and fanned Jill, Estelle and I chatted, and Bill supervised.”

  One day, Vernon took Art Sowell, Navy’s cousin, up for a parachute jump, an added attraction to entertain passengers who paid a dollar or two to fly over Memphis and the Mississippi River. Louise was about to be introduced to the danger that Dean, Vernon, and the jumpers faced all the time. They never talked about it, so there was no way for her to anticipate what it felt like. On this day, Art’s chute failed to open. She saw his body growing larger and larger as he fell to earth. When she cried out, Dean put his hand over her eyes. They ran to Art. To their immense relief, he was alive. Louise made up her mind then that nothing bad could ever happen to Dean. He would be like Art and cheat death; he would be safe for her to love.