RAGGEDY ANN DIDN’T GO TO HEAVEN(Susan Joyner-Stumpf) RAGGEDY ANN DIDN’T GO TO HEAVEN

I was seventeen when the first snow fall that New Orleans had ever known drifted softly through the alien air, forming crystals on trembling trees still dressed in wardrobes of fall russets and opulent orange. I was on a Streetcar from Canal Street headed towards historical St. Charles Avenue where my grandmother lived, watching the white flakes fall like miniature feathers out of a grey and dismal sky. My face was pressed against the frosted glass, much like a child peering in the window of a giant toy store, wide-eyed with expectation and unabashed glee. Other passengers seemed astounded as well, for it was only something we heard about from friends that lived up North, or when we visited relatives that lived in quaint winter wonderlands. For us tropical folks in the southern belt’s most furthest region, it was a pristine wonder to behold and never forgotten, as we wouldn’t experience rare snow again in these parts for another fifteen years.

Granny Toups lived in a circa 1875 Queen Anne Victorian right on the Avenue where the clink, clink, of antique Streetcars and clop, clop of horse and mule-drawn tour carriages passed hourly in front of her spacious, grand mansion with its ornamental wrought-iron fence, and Gingerbread Spindles gracing a wrap-around front porch. Stepping inside Granny Toups’ home was definitely like stepping back into a time warp ~ a journey back into a simpler, more elegant past. Inside, interiors were laden and draped with priceless, heirloom antiques. A marvelous Teakwood stairway wound its circular way to a third floor; heavy red velvet-damask curtains puddled to Oriental-carpeted hardwood floors, adorning two floor-to-ceiling beveled bay windows in the lavish front parlor. A silver tea service poised majestically on a pink marble coffee table, complete with lace doilies, surrounded by homemade Cinnamon buns and Gatlinburg taffy to celebrate my anticipated arrival. A roaring fire blazed behind a fireplace mantel encased in deep, red Mahogany, details engraved in its wood depicting cherubs and other angelic figures. An English Grandfather Clock in the corner struck meticulous time from hidden chambers. It stood next to a quiet, lighted curio cabinet with rounded glass on paw and ball feet, housing Granny’s most treasured, imported china and porcelain figurines, and fine crystal stemware.

Her butler Parrin ushered me in the marbled foyer. Parrin had to be as old as Granny and had been in her family for generations, long before my birth. He was part of the fixtures, the rambling antiques, the plastered wallpaper, that enriched her lonely, extravagant world. Ever since Granddad died when I was very young, but still old enough to remember him, Granny only had this house, Parrin, and her little dog, Tuxedo, for company. His wrinkled but ever cordial smile warmed me nonetheless, as he graciously took my long coat, and neatly hung it in the hall Armoire.

“Mistress Toups is in the front parlor, Mistress Heather. She has anxiously been awaiting you.” All the women in the family, me, my mother, my aunts, were referred to as “mistresses.” The men, my father, my brother, my uncles, were the “Masters.” It seemed part of Parrin’s upbringing, his grooming, his chiseled breeding, to speak like this. The way Parrin addressed us may have appeared strange to outsiders; felt uncomfortable even. But when those heavy doors closed behind me, I liked to think that I was a princess, and that everyone was treated with such genuine affection and royalty.

Granny Toups was dressed in a blue mist chiffon dress, with sparkling pearls and a Cameo brooch, and her silver, gossamer hair wrapped in a tight, neat little bun around her slender, graceful neck. She always looked ready to walk out on a ballroom dance floor, and here I was, as always, in a black turtleneck, faded blue jeans, and dusty suede boots. But she never judged from outward appearances. Always I was just that ~ her little princess, and I still think had I worn cutoff shorts and a tank top on my visits to her, she still would have treated me the same.

“Hi little doll,” she called to me, reaching out with trembling, arthritic hands that still vainly prided in polished fingernails. She smelled of Lavender and Roses and I drank in the familiar whiff of her with utmost love and respect. As I took her fingers and felt the thinning bones beneath sagging flesh, a wash of sadness swept over and through me. She was fading. Fading before my very own eyes, this lithe tower of a woman, the Monarch of our family reign. She had the fire of youth behind ancient blue eyes, though her body was wasting away into nothingness. “Did you bring that white magic here?”

Her little Boston Bull Terrier, Tuxedo, “Tux,” who loved no one but Granny, enlisted a nasty snarl behind mashed teeth and bug-eyes. Cute as he was, almost like a Pug, no one could touch him, not even butler Parrin. Tux belonged to Granny and no one else and he made it amply known that if you moved too quickly towards her, you would be at the mercy of his 25-pound wrath.

“Oh ~ the snow, isn’t it wonderful, Granny?” I asked as I ran to the massive windows, flung open the heavy drapes to expose the lace panels behind them so that what light of day there was in the midst of a snow storm could filter through the little parlor room. “Guess we’re gonna have a White Christmas after all, Grans,” I finished, plopping down opposite her on a white wicker settee.

“Gonna is not a word, dearie,” she taunted me. Granny knew that I was excellent in my English class; that I wrote short stories and poetry. But she often asked me why couldn’t I speak as well as I wrote? I knew her mockery of me was never for the sake of offense nor rudeness. She was well aware that truly I knew better, yet like all New Orleanians, my lingo would often slip out of pure laziness. Sometimes I did purposefully, to have Granny go off on a tirade, but in a good way.

She began to pour us some tea. Each visit, she tried to have something a little different. Earl Grey; Chamomile, Spice of India, Peppermint. Today, it was Almond Flower and it tasted delicious with the homemade Cinnamon rolls.

Granny had a collection of Raggedy Anns. Mom said they were worth a pretty penny. Why then, I thought, did Granny give one to Tux when he was just a puppy, and now as an adult male dog, he still totes it around like a little boy with his toy Tonka truck, never letting it out of his sight? He lay in Granny’s lap, the little Raggedy Ann doll tucked safely between his paws.

Tux eyed me behind my floral china teacup. If Granny happened to leave the room for any reason, commanding him to stay, he would reluctantly obey, but he would take position of her warm spot and not release his beady, bulging eyes off of me for even a split-second. I mean, he wouldn’t even blink, I don’t believe. I tried to make friends with him, once, when I was a little girl of seven. He bit me on the hand, drawing blood, and I cried, not from pain, but from wounded pride. I had always gotten along with all animals. I loved them and I knew they loved me. But for some reason, Tux was different and I couldn’t befriend him, then or now. I remember because of the bite, Granny spanked Tux in front of me, and I don’t think he ever forgave me for being the cause of his first and only whipping.

Now we watched each other with a measure of trust, but it was a thin veil and could be severed at the drop of a hat. All I had to do was rush at Granny or try to sit next to her, and he would be all squealing muscle and deformed little teeth trying to gnaw me to pieces. I just had to accept the fact that here was an animal that loved the same person I loved, and felt it was his life’s mission to ultimately protect her from all things, including me. If I stayed my distance, and spoke quietly in conversation, he would relax in her shadow, sometimes even close those little bulging eyes, but it would never be for very long. And always, his little Raggedy Ann stayed between clutched paws or when he left the room for whatever reason, he carried it as gently in his mouth as a mother cat carrying her kitten to and fro.

Granny and I talked of my school year and the upcoming holidays. She asked of my mother, her daughter, and I said mom was doing good. Mom had had a Colon Cancer scare but was in remission going on four years now. She asked after my brother, my father and uncle Tim. We talked of small things, first, before she would get philosophical, and start reading me poems from Keats or Walt Whitman. Then she’d want to hear my own latest dabbles, and I always had something to share with her. I would at first fumble nervously, shyly, in my beaded purse, withdraw my most current writings, and then I would read to her as though I were reading to a courtly audience. And always she would applaud and smile and beam as though she were that entire audience, and she was that ~ to me. She always made me feel special and momentous inside.

“Oh my little missy,” she would say, “where does all this come from? Your mom doesn’t know a Sonnet from a sunrise, but you weave words like a quilter creates afghans, or an artist paints a picture, so you do ~ but with words.”

Granny had always been my greatest fan, my supporter. No one else seemed to care or take notice of my scribbles. Though I won every Creative Writing Contest I ever entered from grammar to high school, and I was Assistant Editor of my high school newspaper, the rest of my family could care less that I could write a Quatrain or free verse like e.e. cummings. But Granny thought I was a little Emily Dickinson, and it was all the more reason to love her, as she believed in me when no one else did, or ever would.

Later on in the afternoons, we would have Lemonade and finger sandwiches that Parrin prepared for us in the Solarium, a round, glassed-in sunroom in the back of the house over looking the garden. The light-filled room was stuffed to the brim with giant plants, trees, blooming flowers, Roses, her favorite, and statues strategically placed about and peeking through the foliage. A small pond with Koi fish was off to the side. We enjoyed the sound of the waterfall created by the water filtering down faux river rocks. On this occasion, we ate our sandwiches and drank fresh Apple Cider and for dessert, we had Lemon Tarts and coffee. We watched snow coming down outside the walls of curved glass. It was beautiful and time seemed to stand still, and I wished that it would have, with Tux at her feet, and the Raggedy Ann at his feet, and the quiet of a winter wonderland in uptown New Orleans summoning us to its brilliant and serene stillness.

I didn’t want to leave then. I wanted to hug Granny when Tux’s eyes were closed. I squeezed her neck, felt the frailty and again, that rush of fear and sadness swept through me like a cold storm. “I love you so much, Granny,” my eyes filled up with tears. I couldn’t help it.

“Everything is okay, Heather, dear,” she said. But I knew it wasn’t. She was always the positive Monarch. Like today. Admiring the snow outside killing her beautiful garden of Day Lilies and Pink Tulips. Icing over the tender bulbs of Magnolias and potted Geraniums. Crystallizing the last of her fragrant Gardenia bushes and Jasmine and Wisteria vines. Freezing the Azalea shrubs and blades of grass shoots that once swept across her sea of green lawn. But she never had anything negative to say, and would find a silver lining even in the darkest patch of coarse, brutal leather. That was Granny. Ever the optimist when wars outside raged and the era of the times spoke of unrest and dangerous growth pains. And more war with troubled times on a distant horizon. But Granny would smile a faint smile behind ancient blue eyes.

It was the time to leave, though, before dusk. Dad would pick me up at Canal Street, where he dropped me off to get on the Streetcar. It wasn’t safe for a seventeen year old girl to be alone on the streets of New Orleans in the dark, so it was time to go. I gathered my little beaded purse and left a few poems I made copies of for Granny because she always asked if I could leave some with her. She liked to read them before she went to bed at night.

“Next Saturday, same time?” I asked.

“Whenever it’s convenient for you, sweetie, maybe next time, Michael can come with you.” But my brother Michael would never come, I knew that. She knew that. It was just formality to say. Michael was deep in the throws of drug addiction. I doubt in his world, Granny or I or the rest of the family even existed anymore. When he wasn’t getting loaded, he was sleeping it off, getting ready for his next fix. He was twenty and throwing his life away. Except for Granny, we’d all given up on him. He was in and out of jail, and dropped out of school. A brilliant mind turned to drugs. It was sad. We lost him a long time ago. Granny never looked at it that way, though. “He’ll come around again,” she would say to shaking heads and sobbing shoulders. But he never did. Not completely, anyway.


~ ~

And I never saw Granny again. She died the following Thursday morning in her sleep. Parrin said he found her like that, lying in bed, a smile across her peaceful face, her blue, ancient eyes forever closed. Tuxedo lay at her side wailing like a wolf at the moon by her side, frozen like that in his shivering grief, yet still unable to be touched. The Raggedy Ann was between his paws. When Parrin tried to gather him, Tux would stop his moan long enough to show a row of meaningful little teeth. He would then resort back to weeping for the only thing he ever loved, and the only thing in life he ever allowed to love him back. It was only after a Vet was called to give him a tranquilizer that Granny’s body was able to be removed to the morgue for cremation, as was in her Will and Testament.

After the services, our family stopped by Granny’s house. Dad said, “Heather, Parrin has Tux in a crate. Would you go inside and get him, please? It was in Granny’s Will that we all take care of him for the rest of his life. He’s already fifteen years old, he can’t live much longer, anyway. We will make arrangements to sell the house and decide which heirlooms we’d like to keep in the family. Parrin has been relieved of his duties, but promises to stay on until we’ve actually sold the place so it won’t be left empty and abandoned.”

The Will actually said I would inherit Tux, not the rest of the family. It was my name next to Tux’s in the Will, not my brother’s; not dad’s; not even her daughter, my mom’s name. But I don’t think Tux wanted to be inherited. He growled from the depths of the crate without me even looking at him. When I looked up at Parrin, his own eyes were swollen from tears; he seemed so lost as he handed me the crate. “Good luck, Mistress Heather. I will miss you.”

“Won’t you come visit us, Mr. Parrin?” I pleaded. “You know where we live, in Metairie, about twenty minutes outside of town.”

“I’m an old man, Mistress Heather, “Parrin said, “I don’t have many years left myself. I have no family anymore. They have all passed on long ago, but I have a home in the British Isles beside the Ocean. The property has been in the Parrin family for five generations. I will go back there, live out what remains of my life. I will die with the windows open, hear the sea call, like I did as a boy so many years ago but I never answered, then . . .” his voice trailed and he stumbled and I caught him, and held this fragile brokenness of a man. We stood there, holding each other up like faltering Roman fortresses who have lost their soul-Emperor (or Empress, as was our case), weeping into each other’s black funeral clothes. “Go now, go, go . . . and I’m sure, Tux, you won’t be missing much of me,” he smiled affectionately at the 25-pound tiger in a Boston Bull Terrier body.

I never saw Parrin again. He died two years later, as he wanted, they said in a letter to our family. He died in his home beside the Ocean. Good for you, Mr. Parrin, I wept out loud. You heard the call of the sea, this time, and answered. Goodbye, my friend. I will miss you.

~ ~

And Tux lived with us another five years. He died at the ripe old age of twenty. I meant to tell you that in the last five years of his life, he accepted me, and only me. I was the only one in our family that he finally allowed to touch him. Not my brother who was partially sober now. Not my mother, and not my dad. He clung to me, like I was all he had left of Granny. He protected me just like he did her, so long ago. I would have to put him up in his crate if anyone (family or my fiancé or friends) wanted to get near me. Hug me or something like that. And of course he still toted, until the end, his little Raggedy Ann doll.

It was a winter evening that I had come home. No one else in the family was home yet, and this disturbed me. Dad happened to be working late. Mom was at a Bridge Club meeting according to her scribbled note on the refrigerator. I was preparing to get married, so still living at home to save money with my fiancé. My brother Michael was in and out of AA and still lived at home, too, working part time in construction. He wasn’t home either, and the house was eerily quiet. I didn’t want to accept my instincts that something was terribly wrong here. I dismissed it only as pre-wedding nerves, or something else, but surely I was unwilling to accept what deep-down I felt as soon as I entered my home into the thick, menacing quiet.

I went into my room and that’s where I found Tuxedo laying quietly across my pillow, those bug-eyes forever closed. I didn’t see the Raggedy Ann that he was never without and that bothered me greatly, but not as much as the fact that he was awfully still. When I reached for him, and felt the stiff coldness, I knew that he was gone. I buried my face in his fur and wept like a child that could not be consoled.

“You are with Granny now, little guy,” I whispered into his deaf ears. My body was racked with infinite, aching sorrow, as though I’d known his companionship forever. It was only after I buried him in the back yard with my family to mourn his passing as well that I found his Raggedy Ann a little later in my closet, behind old empty shoe boxes. It was then I knew I was only meant to find it now. I do believe he hid it purposefully for me to find after his death, for he didn’t need it anymore. He had Granny now. So he left it for me. Raggedy Ann didn’t go to Heaven with him because he knew I still needed a reminder of them both, down here.

As if forgetting either of them could ever be possible . . .

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