Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (69 page)

As one would imagine, they’re totally against Prohibition and that’s where I come in with the bootlegging. Tomorrow night as a matter of fact. Tomorrow night. More to come.

I turn the page, eager to read more. Blank page. That was Papa’s last entry.

I want to get to the bottom of this and decide that a five-party telephone won’t do. Foolish me jumps out of the bathtub and drives over to William’s plantation and asks their colored cook for William. Instead of seeing Teeee-Jay, here comes his father. This confirms my thinking that “Willy” is short for William. I’m shaking in my boots but he’s sweet as pie and invites me in to wait for his son in the den, telling me that TJ and his mother have gone out to run errands. The place is unusually quiet and I’m flabbergasted by the old musty smells, the creaking worn patches in the dusty wood flooring, the threadbare sofa in the den, the clutter of newspapers, tea cups, a jacket on the floor, wall hangings crooked, like only the outside mattered in its manicured appearance. I remember TJ telling me that they could only afford a cook these days and I’m thinking she obviously spends all her time in the kitchen. He hands me a strong drink without first asking and sits across from me while we idle-chat. I can’t imagine TJ’s perfectly poised mother living in this. I reach the bottom of my bourbon with mint floating in it and this loosens my tongue. I finally blurt out, “Are you my Great-Uncle Willy?”

He sets down his glass and eyes me coolly. “You want to straight-talk, do you? Alright. Joe phoned me in quite a state a little earlier. Said you came in his room yelling like a sick hound, demanding answers. Said your attitude would make a preacher cuss. That’s
a sign of poor upbringing right there, especially when you’ve been offered a silver platter with your daddy’s growing-up home-place and it’s prime real estate that you and TJ could benefit from. You and TJ should get hitched and combine these two plantations and we can make the Pickerings strong again in the community.” He lights a cigar like he’s got all day to bullshit me. “But you don’t want to rush this by killing your uncle. He’s family and family looks after one another.”

My back goes rigid and I’m feeling injured. I say no, of course not and why does he say such a thing. And he goes into a long speech about Joe’s poor health and that if I’m only there to put Joe six feet under so that I can get his plantation, then I’m going about it all wrong and that I should be ashamed of myself.

I go from injury to anger in three seconds flat.

“Marrying my cousin is not the answer either,” I say. “And I’m not the only one who should be ashamed. You and your KKK and your bootlegging killed my papa and I had to grow up without him.”

His eyes go dark as if I’ve torn off the veil into his dark side and I jump up like the seat cushion caught on fire. Yet my do-or-die had to finish its say. As if I’m not standing in enough shit, I shovel more. “All I’m asking,” I say in a shaky voice, “is that you call off the dogs, Joe and TJ, and your secret will be safe with me. I’m not looking for a husband, and if I was, I sure as hell wouldn’t marry a self-centered, mean-spirited
cousin
to get what is rightfully mine. Like father, like son. You know what? I’ve had enough of this southern charm. I’m going back up north, where I belong. Someone can just mail me the deed when Joe dies.”

I stomp out of the room and out onto the front verandah. My steps slow, though, going down the stairs as I notice the gigantic oak tree in the front yard and all of a sudden I can imagine, I can almost
see
Papa standing there beside the tree in a white linen suit looking just like his photograph, his hand is shading his eyes and he’s looking up at the second story, just like his journal said. He’s saying,
that’s dangerous, get away from here
, and somehow I know he’s talking to me.

I pick up the pace heading toward my Duesy when a hand clamps onto my shoulder. It’s Uncle Willy. With a gun. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he says in a low tone that gives me goose bumps. “I want to give you a tour.” He motions with his gun. “Come on, Miss Priss.”

Seeing a real hand gun for the first time in my life stuns me and things become unreal, like watching one of those gangster films TJ and I enjoyed. We walk behind the house and around the breezeway to “the kitchen house” and he tells me in a tour-guide voice that this plantation house used to be a grand southern belle, her long gown and train spread out for miles. “Damn war and runaway slaves took most of the cotton crop and my granddad was forced to sell off land until his southern belle was reduced to a church lady in an ugly skirt.” We walk beyond the mowed lawn, cedar fencing around its edge, and as we pass some small gray timber buildings that look a hundred years old, he uses his gun as a pointer as he calls out their purpose: a smokehouse, a tool barn, a granary, a stable. He opens the door to the stable and I peer inside to empty stalls. We continue to an overgrown field and pause where in the tall grasses lay remnants of a foundation here and there, bricks, and partial fireplaces. “Granddad owned more than fifty slaves at one time.” He shakes his head and I’m thinking I agree: that’s terrible. Until he turns away muttering, “Damn war.”

We enter a wooded area and through there we continue for some time, with his strong hold on my elbow, his other hand holding the gun as casually as he held his drink. A small shack suddenly appears as if growing there, practically covered by ivy, fern, and Spanish moss that’s dripping down from tall, overhanging trees, the weight and sag in this humidity making it all look weary. Its tiny front porch is sunken with rotting wooden planks and I can hear something scatter underneath as we step up onto it.

“My daddy hid slaves here,” he says, opening the door. “They’d work off their ten-year indenture and then he’d give them a piece of land.” I’m now a tourist and step up to look through the door without hesitation. “Only TJ and I know about this place.”

I’m in a stupid daze with only the word
gun
repeating itself in my head but this statement and the dark interior wakes me up into
pure terror. I cry out “No!” and pull away but his grip tightens and his other arm comes around my neck and squeezes. “Since you’re so against the KKK,” he mutters in my ear, “maybe you and darkie ghosts can mediate.” With this he shoves me in and slams the door behind me. I rush forward to grab the door knob but he’s quick to lock with a key from the outside. I’m a prisoner.

I don’t yell. I don’t cry. My whole being goes into survival mode. After trying the door a few times, and after deciding that the one window is too small to crawl through, I stand quietly, waiting for my vision to adjust to murky gray. There’s no sunlight that comes through; the place sits in total shade. I can make out some furnishings against the three walls: a cot, some sort of cupboard, and a bench. Everything is gray, even the musty mattress, and I can’t bring in another color, more light – there’s no matches for the lantern in the cupboard. Just a rusty can opener and a tin cup and, oh yes, a slop jar that eventually comes in handy for my … wastes. I at last sit gingerly on the mattress, amongst the circles of darker gray stain, and I wait and listen. Panic rises up and I swallow it back down; I don’t want to go crazy here. Of all the questions skittering around in my head, the one that is loudest is Why Am I Here? I find out much later, when the gray becomes dark and feels like the darker it becomes, the smaller my space is and I’m becoming afraid this darkness will touch me, wrap around me, squeeze me until I suffocate. I’m wishing I’d eaten breakfast that morning rather than delivering Joe his. Then I’m wishing I’m back there, even to be yelled at by Joe; he wasn’t so bad, everything there had been looked after for me, no housecleaning or cooking, that warm massive feather bed … and oh, Clary’s sweet potato biscuits …

Through the window I see an artificial ray of light dart about from tree to tree and become brighter as I hear footsteps on the porch. The rotting lumber creaks and cracks under the weight of more than one soul out there, keys jingle, the door answers back
with its own creak as it opens and closes. The ray of light comes around to shine on me. I shade my eyes.

“Katy?”

I’m so relieved! “TJ! Why am I here?”

There’s a long pause as the flashlight remains on me. “Daddy wants us to work things out,” he finally answers, his voice sounding unsure. I hear the door being locked again from the outside but whoever is out there, stays there. “Stop asking questions!” he says, sounding forcefully gruff. “You’ll speak when spoken to!” We listen to the sound of footsteps walking away.

“You don’t have to shout, TJ. Did you bring some matches? Did you bring a lantern or a lamp or something?”

“I brought a candle,” he said, lowering his voice.

I hear a bag rattling, smell food, a sandwich in wax paper lands on my lap, as the flashlight beam darts around from his other hand. I stand up and grab this to set up on the cupboard for better lighting. He yanks it out of my hand and with a force I’m not expecting, shoves his hand against my chest and I sit back down on the mattress with a thud.

“Sit still!” he barks and I sense some alarm in his voice.

I’ve lost my sandwich to the darkness below me. I want to eat, to cry, to demand, to beg.
Fight with honey
, someone once said. “Look, TJ, I don’t understand any of this. I’m sorry but my sandwich dropped from my lap and I can’t see it.” I use my sweetest tone. “Can you get it?”

“In a minute.” He continues fumbling through the bag and a bottle of liquor comes out. TJ takes a long swig; I can hear his throat swallowing drink after drink, I can smell the bourbon. He pushes the bottle into my hand. “Drink, then you can eat.”

I hand this back to him after my attempt. “It’s too strong.”

His flashlight shines down on my sandwich and this he picks up off the floor and throws across the tiny room. “Drink!” His voice is shrill now.

I do as I’m told, now wanting the booze as much as he does. I guzzle and with an empty stomach, it hits hard. Back and forth
we pass the bottle without words until I’m woozy. He seems to be drinking for courage, I’m drinking for cowardice. It’s all I can do not to start screaming, fighting, clawing. The bourbon works its black magic and I relax and sway and watch his hands light the candle, now seeing two, no, only one, becoming glad for the cozy darkness around us. The flashlight is off and has disappeared into black and I feel I am disappearing, too.

“Why, why, why,” I hear myself say softly. “Why am I here?”

This seems to give him the opening he’s looking for. “For this, baby.” And with a power and strength I can’t reckon with, he grabs my shoulders, pushes me back and he’s swiftly lying on top, moving hard and fast as if afraid I’ll get away, his breath getting louder in my ear, hands pinching, groping, pulling, my dress and panties twisted, ripped enough for his mission. I struggle like someone under water, weight and motion a hundred times heavier. His weight is on me, then in me, then through me, like I’ve been skewered to the bed.

The impact of what he’s done hits later, in the smothering closeness, blackness of the room, the candle now disappeared with the flashlight, and of him passed out beside me. I lie immobilized, trying to breathe in deeply, and with each expelled breath goes a
Why?
Finally the early morning light shows me the dark gray blood on my thigh, his unzipped trousers, and I become abruptly sick and run to the slop jar.

“Rinse with this,” he says, now standing at the cupboard with a Mason jar of water. He’s a stranger to me now; revolting, sloppy, his hair flat on one side, no shirt. He does his business at the slop jar while I drink thirstily. I’m as sick as I’ve ever been and can only lie down again to keep from falling in the shifting room. I face the wall and he spoons in behind me and soon I hear him snoring. I sleep in pieces, between the real, the unreal, the dreams, the nightmare. I’m not sure which I’m in when he begins to move against me. “Don’t be upset with me,” he mumbles, his hand coming around to squeeze my breast. “I love you.” And soon he’s doing what he did hours before and this time I just lie there, any movement causing more pain, just lie there and wait and it’s taking longer and he’s moving slower and
he’s talking to me, telling me how he loves me, how he wants me, how I need him to marry me. And all I can concentrate on is the burning, and how my energy had bled out and what’s the use and just get it over with. Over and over, unbuttoning my blouse, kissing my breasts, and can’t he see I’m not there anymore? Uncaring, unfeeling. Except somewhere in me, I hope he dies.