Asylum Heights

by Austin R. Moody

  “Oh no, father,” she exclaimed, “he has been wonderful to me. He saved me from possibly being raped, even murdered. It was horrible. We were at this New Year’s party. Several men attacked him, because one of them tried to take me away from him. He managed to get me into the car and save us both, because they would have gotten me if he hadn’t been strong and clever enough to get us out of there.”

  “Where is he now?” Her father asked.

  “I don’t know, still up in Mississippi,” she answered, then continued, “He had that guy that caused all the trouble in the car with him and took me to Laurel. He bought me a ticket on the bus back to New Orleans. I don’t know what he did with the little sneak afterwards. Anyway,” she persisted, “I have had enough of being a bad girl, consorting with gangsters and shady people just for the excitement. I want to stay here at home with you and Mama, and go back to law school, stay busy, and marry a good solid man that can take care of me, just as you have cared so much and so well for Mama and all of us.”

  “Thank God!” her father whispered. “Do you have any bags?” he inquired.

  Sybil laughed sardonically, “Nothing. I’m lucky to have my dress on.”

  Her father laughed, then said, “Come on, I’ll help you to your room. You can take a nice bath and come back downstairs. Odelia will fix your favorite breakfast, and then you can go to bed and sleep your heart out. What about the Mississippian? Will you see him again?”

  Sybil looked distantly for several moments in deep consideration before she answered, “Yes, Daddy, but only to thank him and to tell him that I can’t continue our relationship.”

  Her father enfolded her in his arms again, and said, “Whatever you want, darling, I will thank him myself.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  NEW YEAR’S DAY 1932

  A thin sliver of daylight penetrated a crevice in the wall of the barn. Glen was lying upon his back, and his face and eyelids were directly in the tiny beam’s path. It had grown in intensity since dawn, invading the dry, dusty air of the hayloft, prodding his mind into wakefulness. His initial thought was of Sybil, then of the remains lying quietly at the bottom of Souinlovey Creek. Sybil preempted his thoughts.

  She was surely in New Orleans by now, secure in her family home and dissociated from the awful reality that she had experienced. He had to reach her, but first he knew that he had to clean the Studebaker. He tore his shirt into wide strips, and completed the cleansing of the blood and dried tissue that still remained adherent to the front bumper, grill, headlights, and around the body of the automobile. When he got to the back of the car, however, he discovered that the rear license plate was missing. He worried about this new finding, but knew that he could do nothing about it.

  Finally, after three hours of intense effort, the car sparkled and he could find no trace of the early morning’s work in the field on Souinlovey Creek. The fractured windshield demanded immediate attention. He thought of Salvatore Palermo, and knew that he could be depended upon to find a glass repairman with the discretion so urgently required. He would wait until night and drive to New Orleans to get it replaced. He would also find Sybil.

  He heard his mother calling him to the noon meal. He was naked above the waist and entered the back of the house, going directly to his room. He took a fresh shirt and a bottle of Mercurochrome from his top dresser drawer and went to the back porch for a mirror to inspect his torn jaw and clean the wound. There was a roll of cloth tape in a vanity at the rear of the house beside the hand pump over the well, and a large ceramic washbowl sat upon its top. He pressed the handle up and down and the water flowed into the bowl. He washed the laceration on his face and dried it thoroughly. A mirror was on the adjacent wall and he inspected the injury. It wasn’t pretty.

  He dabbed the disinfectant liberally along and into the depths of the cut then tore narrow strips of the tape. He pulled the opposing wound edges tightly together then covered it entirely with a broad strip of the tape. He was quite pleased with the result and felt that he could now present himself to his parents. He returned to his room, put on the clean shirt and walked into the kitchen.

  “Glen!” His mother exclaimed. “What on earth has happened to your face?”

  Glen sat down to his place at the table, took the napkin beside his plate and placed it upon his lap then nonchalantly replied, “I cut myself while I was shaving.”

  Papa Hailes noticed the rather heavy shadow of unshaven beard in addition to the lengthy, prominent bandage covering the majority of his left mandible and stated rather blandly, “You better get yourself a new razor.”

  Glen felt like hell, but set down the tablespoon that he had immersed in a large bowl of turnip greens, and broke into uncontrolled laughter. Miss Ellie quickly began to laugh as well. Soon, Papa joined in the mirth too, enjoying this little scene and ending the matter.

  Papa asked, “Where is our house guest? Did she come from New Orleans?”

  Glen told them that she had been suddenly called back to New Orleans because of a sudden family problem, but that she really regretted that she had missed meeting them. He told them that she would return soon and spend some time with them.

  With that Papa said the blessing and they began the meal. Toward the end of it, Glen announced to his parents that he must go to New Orleans himself that evening, that he had a pressing matter, one that needed most urgent attention. Papa knew that he must not question nor intervene regarding this announcement. He only reminded his son that another cycle of plowing, planting, chopping, and working the fields was about to begin.

  Glen replied, “I wouldn’t leave if it weren’t so important, but I’ll be home just as soon as I can make it back, Papa.” His father nodded his head in affirmation without speaking and quietly continued his dinner.

  Darkness gathered as dusk began to die.

  He needed the complete cover of darkness to protect the broken Studebaker during its journey back to New Orleans. He had slept throughout the afternoon.

  Mama lit the kerosene lamps. He put on his work clothes. He embraced his father and held his mother close, then kissed her and went to the car. He was gone a few moments later. They listened as the engine sounds faded away.

  Glen pressed along in the night, being careful not to drive too fast for fear of attracting the attention of the law. He stopped at the Forrest Hotel in Hattiesburg, obtained a phone booth from the clerk and called Salvatore Palermo in New Orleans.

  Sal was not only irritated by this late call, but came alert when he recognized Glen’s voice. “What’s wrong?” He inquired.

  Glen answered earnestly, “Sal, I need your help. I ran into some trouble back home, and I need someone to fix the windshield on my car.”

  Sal questioned, “What happened to it?”

  “Don’t ask, Sal, it might get you into trouble,” Glen replied.

  Sal didn’t press the issue further. He knew and trusted Glen and simply told him. “I will call a guy that will take care of it. Where can I reach you?”

  Glen looked at his watch. It was 10:30 at night. He said, “I won’t be able to get there until just before daylight, but I’ll go wherever he wants to meet me.”

  Sal simply said, “Call me when you get in town.”

  Glen marveled and said to himself, “I couldn’t trust anyone else on earth with such a request, and he didn’t even ask the reason. I will repay him someday, some way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  NEW ORLEANS (ENCORE)

  Glen’s trip to New Orleans was slow and painful. He drove a short distance to Laurel keeping his speed under forty miles per hour with the wind blistering his face and blowing his hair into a tumble of black straw. It dried his eyes and forced irritated tears down his cheeks, evaporating back into the night until he became so impatient that he accelerated to sixty, only to succumb to the blistering force of the wind once more blasting through the hole in the windshield. He began to sing at the top of his voice to keep awake, yelling into the night,
driving on and on.

  Nearing 1:30 the following morning he was in a death struggle with weariness and fatigue. He finally conceded and slowed into a small spot beside the road and was asleep a few moments later. He awakened at 3:18 a.m. and continued to press the drafty car to the highway, then on to the outskirts of the City of New Orleans.

  He found a truck stop cafe. It was brilliantly lighted and had a large aggregation of vehicles, parked at both the front and sides of the parking lot. No one was in any of the vehicles or loitering about the outside of the place. Glen quickly steered the Studebaker to the rear, into covering night and protection for the damaged car.

  He turned off the ignition and sat in the darkness for several minutes, waiting for any movement from the exterior of the building. Finally, he opened the door and emerged, walking slowly around the building and into the cafe. He sat at the counter. The waitress approached, set a glass of ice water in front of him and inquired, “Whatcha need, Shugah?”

  Glen responded, “I have to make a call to New Orleans. Do you have a telephone booth?”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied, “but you have to buy something first. We don’t have a regular phone booth with an operator, just the one back in the manager’s office.”

  Glen reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet. He stared a moment into its crevice, extracted a $10.00 bill and ordered, “Let me have three eggs, fried over easy, a thick slice of ham, three pancakes with plenty of syrup and butter, grits and red-eye gravy, and a pot of coffee.”

  He continued, “I’m only seventy-five miles from home, and all of this breakfast wouldn’t have come to more than fifty cents if I were still there. The telephone call shouldn’t cost more than thirty-five cents, even if it is long distance. That leaves $9.15, which should keep you and your bunch in groceries for about a month. If you don’t think the price is right, I’ll just move on down the road.” She considered for a moment, then reached under the counter and removed a plate, silverware and a napkin from underneath, making a place setting in front of him.

  She said, “I’ll take you to the manager’s office, and you can make your call, but my boss will fire me if he finds out I took you back there. I’ll set your food out while you’re on the phone, but don’t talk all day. If you do, your eggs and meat will get cold, and I will feed it to the hogs, keep your money, and then you can just haul out of here and move on down the road to wherever just like you said.”

  Glen mocked her, “You have to stop flirting with me. I might take you seriously.”

  Incensed, but not totally, she retorted, “Come on to the back office with me but don’t get any ideas. I’ve gotten everything out of your pants I need already.” Glen grinned but didn’t make any further comment. He followed her through a louvered swinging door into the kitchen then down a narrow hallway to the manager’s office. She lit a small shaded overhead incandescent lamp. She took a telephone from a side desk, removed the receiver from its cradle and dialed the operator then handed it to Glen. She turned and went back to the cafe.

  Glen gave Sal’s telephone number to the operator. A few moments later, Sal’s quick, terse salutation responded, “Yes?” Glen quietly spoke in the receiver without identifying himself, “I’m just outside New Orleans. Where do I go now?”

  Sal gave him detailed directions to a street and an address and a telephone number in the event he couldn’t find the shop. He told Glen that the mechanic would be there and would have the car fixed by the following afternoon. “Deliver it to this guy then get lost. Take a cab to a small hotel somewhere in town, and call me where you can be reached, then wait.” Then Sal hung up the telephone. Glen moved quickly from the kitchen, and within thirty minutes was again en route to New Orleans.

  He found the tiny street an hour later in an industrial district of the city. After some time he located the shop, knocked on the darkened, corrugated metal overhead door that allowed vehicle access from the street. He heard the rumble of a pulley chain from within and watched as the door rose vertically, exposing the lighted shop containing several vehicles in various stages of repair.

  He pulled the Studebaker into the garage, got out, and greeted the body and glass man. After a few moments of inspection, the mechanic confirmed that he would have no difficulty obtaining the necessary parts and would deliver the car the following late afternoon. He then went to his tiny office and called a cab for Glen to be picked up at the Nocturna Emporium, an all-night speakeasy joint a half-block away. He removed a sheet of paper from a notepad on his desk, scratched the name of a small hotel in the French Quarter, the Chartreuse, after he had called and confirmed a reservation from the night clerk, an associate.

  The taxicab picked up Glen within minutes, and shortly thereafter he checked into the tiny hotel. The clerk, a small, thin, balding man behind the desk turned a large, leather bound book around to face Glen, handed him a fountain pen with instructions to fill in the required information on the page before him. As Glen signed into the guest register the clerk simply commented, “I don’t think you’ll need a bellman. It is room number 12, just down the hall on your right.”

  Glen entered the darkened hallway, found and entered the room. It was cramped and there was neither a tub nor shower in the bathroom, but the warm liquid fetched from the hot water tap at the lavatory was all that he needed to clean up. The bed was soft and warm.

  The harsh clanging of the streetcars and the sounds of the lorry traffic on Dauphine Street just outside his door began to prod his mind to wakefulness. It was 8:30 the following morning, and his first thought was of Sybil, where she was, what she was doing, and if she was alright.

  He got up and dressed. He had neither fresh clothes nor toilet articles to make himself presentable, but he did have money. He walked up to Canal Street and found a Walgreen’s Drugstore, entered, purchased the needed items, and walked hastily back to the hotel.

  Glen finished preparing himself, but could not remain in the room until late afternoon, awaiting the call that the car was ready. He wanted desperately to find and to contact Sybil, to verify that she was at home, and that she was safe. What he really wanted, however, was to see and to hold her, to tell her that he loved her beyond all else and that he wanted her to be his wife.

  He walked the short distance to the hotel lobby. He gave Sybil’s home telephone number to the operator. After several rings the butler answered the telephone. Glen answered, “Good morning, Clarence. I am in New Orleans, and I would like to speak to Miss Sybil.”

  After an unexpected, inordinate delay Clarence replied, “I’m sorry, Mr. Glen, but Miss Sybil ain’t receivin’ this morning. She isn’t feeling well from her visit with y’all up there in Mississippi.”

  Glen held the phone, calculating, then quietly asked, “Has she instructed that she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me?”

  Another delay, then Clarence answered. “Yessuh.”

  After another while, Glen simply replied, “Tell her that I am at the Chartreuse Hotel in the French Quarter. I will be there all day if she changes her mind.” Glen hung up the telephone. No dagger, no pistol bullet, no other violent means of his demise could have inflicted more pain in his heart than that which he felt at that moment. Glen had saved her life, and just killed a man in payment for his maltreatment of her, yet she now behaved as though she didn’t even know him.

  He would not wait for a summons. He hailed a cab and fifteen minutes later pressed the tiny button adjacent to her front door. He did not have long to wait. Sybil’s father appeared. Before Glen could speak the elderly man smiled and said, “You must be Glen Hailes. Sybil has told me so much about you, especially regarding the events of last night. You saved her life, and I am so very grateful for what you have done.”

  After a moment he continued, “This has been a very sobering experience for her, however. Before you came into her life, she had become a very independent spirit doing very wild and unpredictable things and consorting with rather unsavory people, some of whom I am
sure that you know.”

  Glen knew the reality of the direction of this conversation in that instant, but remained silent. Sybil’s father continued, “She’s had enough. She loves and respects you, but she must have peace, stability, and security. This must stop, now. Please respect her and grant her that which she requires. I have no desire to hurt you. I know that your father would stand as I do now before Sybil, if your roles were reversed. I see that you are a very unusual man. She would not have felt so deeply about you if that were not the case. I know that you can deal with this. If you were a lesser man I wouldn’t be sure.”

  Her father gazed at his face directly, waiting for his response.

  Glen returned his stare dispassionately with a coldness and intensity that Sybil’s father had never felt before. Glen said, “I’m at the Chartreuse Hotel. Tell her to call me.” Then turned about and walked down the long, narrow driveway out onto the broad thoroughfare back toward the city and the French Quarter.

  Sybil stood and cried at the window of the gable above the entrance to the house on the second floor as she watched him leave.

  Glen walked at an ever-increasing pace and was running when he turned into the entrance to the Chartreuse. The clerk spoke to him as he passed the front desk, but Glen didn’t hear him. He moved quickly and passed through the door into his room. He removed all of his clothes except his shorts then returned to the only comfort that he had known in the last two days, his meager bed.

  It hurt so deeply. He knew that the pain would be waiting for him again. He wondered if it would go on forever, but he was so tired that he finally was unable to relive it any more.

  At 5:20 p.m. Glen was awakened by a knock at his door. He quickly got out of bed and went to the door. He called out, “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Hailes, it’s the night clerk. You have a call down at our switchboard. Can you come down right away or should I take a number?” Glen already had his trousers and shirt on and was putting on his shoes without his socks. He opened the door and said, “Let’s go!”