Pale

by Edward A. Farmer

  Even Silva found herself arriving to work on schedule, completing her duties in a timely manner, and leaving by nightfall without a word or even a sighting of her son other than those mealtimes and his sullen presence at that upstairs window. Fletcher spoke to no one during those days and kept his intentions to himself more than a thief before police interrogation. Still, by the time that summer arrived, we had each settled into new routines and that unmistakable rhythm the house possessed. It had consumed us all, its order coming by way of that returned silence the house impressed upon our civility, its watchful eye a soothing matter at the end of the day, as we knew we would never escape this servitude but that this protection kept us alive and breathing even if only to torture us. Fletcher, although quiet in nature, commanded all we did, and indeed noticed everything that took place inside that home, even if he never left that upper room. His omniscience was a sight from God that could notice even the smallest detail of his space.

  It was one afternoon that he stopped me at the table. Although he had skipped breakfast that morning of his own accord, as he sometimes did, he looked at me as if he’d somehow seen everything we did.

  “I swear something’s different about this place, Miss Bernie,” he said flippantly.

  “Can’t be any different than last night,” I teased back.

  “Maybe I’m different then,” he acknowledged. “I don’t know if I look different, but something’s off.”

  “No, Fletcher, you don’t,” I said. “You still look like that same little boy to me.”

  “But we’ve all changed,” he sighed. “It’s inevitable, and I don’t doubt things can happen overnight anymore. If God created this world and everything we know in it in six days, who says He can’t change it in just one?”

  “Now there you go poking at a Pandora’s box,” I said. “Don’t open what you can’t close.”

  Fletcher smiled, his eyes that innocence that remained from his childhood and would be with him until the day he died, I was sure.

  “What makes me think you’re talking about more than just moving the bed frame?” he now said, feigning a smile that was no better than a snare.

  “No, Fletcher, that’s about it,” I said, hesitant in my delivery as if speaking to God Himself. “We needed a cool area to put Mr. Kern now that summer’s approaching. Silva and I thought it might be okay to place him in there for now.”

  “Mama knows best,” he said, forcing his face into another awkward smile.

  He studied the room carefully.

  “I think this summer’s gonna be hotter than the last,” he continued, “but only time will tell. By the end we may all need a cool place to hide. You just never know with this type of heat.”

  His eyes reminded me of the Missus at that moment, cold and distant, always perpetuating some secret inside his own mind. Still, the young man was charming, a glint of the old boy I hadn’t seen since he’d moved inside the house. He was just as lovely and pleasant as he’d ever been as he now looked around wistfully in recollection of this place from his youth.

  “Seems I got my wish then,” he said, not seeming to direct these words at me as much as he directed them inward, although he awaited my response nonetheless.

  “What’s that, Fletcher?” I asked.

  “I got my wish,” he repeated. “You remember when I told you out at the stables that I wanted to stay here for a long time?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Well, my wish came true,” he said cunningly, with a smile that burns me even to this day to remember.

  In that moment he was no longer a slave, as he’d once considered, for his existence inside that house was now a circumstance of his own choosing, although he failed to recognize the score of wealthy men who were each slaves to their fortunes and indeed all of those fanciful tyrants who wielded influence over many people yet held less authority over their own lives than the servants they commanded. With every part of my being that was sane and full of sharp thoughts and reason, I believed Fletcher to be insincere in his words, yet part of me somehow knew he was nothing if not truthful. For I had seen that boy remain in constant search of a place to belong ever since that rocky childhood when the lie was first created. That it had started at that house when he was only sixteen years old and told he could not remain throughout the winter like his mother and brother who stayed on to work for the family indefinitely. That he then traveled to Jackson and hoped for a place amongst his family in those parts, only to be sent back to Greenwood and hushed anytime he spoke about his time in the city or how well he fit in with those negroes and their just cause. Still, he’d had school to look forward to as he’d journeyed to that far-off place where he had hoped he’d find a loyal community amongst the intellectuals, yet this reality was stripped away just as quickly as the others when he was summoned back to the plantation for work alongside those negroes who picked and chopped cotton each year, their hands rough and their sights set far away from those enlightened souls he’d known up north. He’d finally lost the tan he’d developed with those workers out there and was now as pasty as the Missus (on her better days nonetheless) while those workers retained their color like the dark shade of midnight when that hour finally came. Then there was that final connection he’d held to the most, that was shattered some million times over with the realization that Jesse was not of his family. And so now all he had left was this house and this family, for throughout his life it was the only place he truly belonged. He had accepted it and would never leave, God help him.

  Never had I judged a person so wrongly before in my life, for so long attributing Fletcher’s desire to belong as some type of ambition that would lead him to do extraordinary things, when it was in fact nothing more than a chameleon’s flesh that covered his coward heart as the boy sought acceptance wherever it was he journeyed. The boy was just another wanderer amongst us who’d desired to fit in and asked for nothing more of this world than that simple wish to bear fruit. He was a vagabond, a soul freed from heaven and tarnished, dipped in this earthly pool and rusted like iron, the scars shown upon his heart like Adam when he’d eaten the apple. But who could blame Fletcher for his preference, to choose a life of consistency over the upheaval he’d endured for so long? Indeed, we’d all sought acceptance at one time or another: Henry in his flight from this cruel land, me with my hopes to one day join him, Floyd in his unwillingness to leave this plantation even as that work killed him, and even the Missus if one considered those forgone hopes she had of one day living alongside Elizabeth, the only person in this world who’d ever loved her, even if that young mouth knew not the words to call it. And then there was Jesse, the stubborn one, whom I feared had all the complacency in the world lodged inside that weak muscle in his chest, yet it was actually courage that propelled him to seek recognition inside the house and a way out of his circumstance in those fields and into a higher position that he might escape the sun and the calluses formed by working the land. He had all the guts yet none of the glory, for that was reserved for Fletcher and Fletcher alone.

  Still, Fletcher was nothing if not smart, a stern man who held no strong emotions for one thing or the other. He made decisions based on reason and not a single ounce of pride or subjectivity. He treated others fairly, yet that fairness applied equally when considering both punishment and reward. He was a Kern for sure, and it was becoming more apparent with each passing day, as his silence drew longer and his eyes keenly perused the world around him. This control he had over the house now made sense the more I understood the pain he stood to lose it, that staunch resolve he had to never leave another place again in his life, fleeing once more in search of some distant home he was never sure he’d actually find. No, Fletcher made do with this world around him, and I never feared for one moment that he would not be content inside that house for the rest of his life.

  CHAPTER 28

  Fletcher still did not speak to Mr. Kern, thi
s trend having continued since the young man’s arrival, and in fact seemed quite normal until Mr. Kern regained some of his ability to talk after several weeks of Silva and I coaching him. Although the sounds he made were mere grunts and slurred particles of speech that did not appear to be words at all, they were still attempts that Silva and I honored with words of praise. Fletcher, on the other hand, refused to acknowledge any of the old man’s efforts and allowed Mr. Kern’s mumbles and attempted smiles in his direction to go unnoticed for weeks at a time. It was cruel, yet he often was—Fletcher could be the nicest man I’d ever met or the most unfeeling and distant person alive. Truly, I never knew which one I was speaking to, a saint or a devil, for he often presented as both on any given occasion.

  Confirmation of Elise’s pregnancy had reached the house by way of Floyd’s constant yammering one morning, and it indeed came to Fletcher’s ears as soon as he’d entered the downstairs dining room for breakfast, where Mr. Kern sat grunting some line no one could fully understand, and Silva urged the old man to just sit still while she fed him.

  “She’s gots a child,” Floyd spat. “I never believe it a day in ma life. Boy’s gone be a father. Praise God.”

  “Not yet, but soon,” Silva said.

  “Ain’t but yesterday he was a little boy,” Floyd acknowledged. “Don’t know which way is up or down. But that’ll grow ya, sure will.”

  All talking ceased as Fletcher entered the room, a not-so-­subtle end to all of the joy that had just filled that space. He looked around at each guilty party then took his seat at the table, his face cast as if carved in stone and his eyes a delicate completion to that sculpture.

  Just as Floyd tiptoed toward the door, Fletcher said to him, “Don’t leave.”

  Floyd quit his exit and turned to Fletcher.

  “You say my brother’s having a baby?” Fletcher said with the groans of Mr. Kern growing louder and more agitated.

  “Yas, sir,” Floyd said, “sure enough.”

  Mr. Kern moaned more severely as Silva shoved the spoon farther inside his mouth to keep him quiet. The table appeared to grow smaller as the intimacy of its design was immediately and starkly noticeable in the closeness of our eyes as we watched one another.

  “Mama, you didn’t tell me,” Fletcher accused Silva.

  “I didn’t thinks you’d wanna know,” she replied.

  “Since when is good news ever not wanted?” he said.

  “Since it comes of what you despise,” she insisted. “Now, you say it ain’t so.”

  “And all this time I thought Jesse was still my brother,” Fletcher said. “And Elise my sister-in-law. That is, until this moment when you let me know differently.”

  “You do have a brother if you want one,” Silva said.

  “Just like I have a mother if I can forgive all the lies she’s told,” Fletcher replied.

  “You can harvest that anger if you want,” Silva declared. “Never getting through your thick skull it’s a seed that’s gonna kill you.”

  The truth of their relationship and its downfall struck my heart at that moment as I watched them deteriorate into contempt and scorn, leading me to close my eyes and bow my head as I whispered a plea to God to save them if it was indeed His will.

  “I only harvest the things I’ve come to know,” Fletcher replied bitterly, waking me from my prayer. “All those things I’ve seen done to me that eventually bear fruit, whether you like it or not. You reap what you sow, Mama, but you can never predict the harvest. Even you know that.”

  He looked around at each person in the room, venom dripping from his eyes that burned when you looked directly into them.

  “So you say I have a brother, do you?” he continued. “And these seeds are going to kill me, seeds I did not plant myself. Guess I should be held responsible for that too. I should feel proud to have a father and just forgive him for never wanting me. I should be thankful I once had friends and forgive the Missus for taking them away. I should thank you that I had a family once until you revealed your little secret. I should be happy I once had joy until you made me lose it all. Just like you made me hate this world I live in, Mama. Just like you made me despise everything about me. That what I have?”

  Fletcher fumed, the angriest I’d seen him, although still a perfect picture of composure as he soon returned to his meal without a further glance in Silva’s direction. God overturned the bucket and poured in a load of sunshine at that exact moment as the room burned hotter than ever before, and every tongue rushed for something cool to drink.

  “Fletcher, you give your spirit to God and no one else,” I said in an effort to ease his soul. “For He allows many things to happen to us for a reason. Who knows what that reason is sometimes?”

  “I do,” he replied sharply, surprising each person in the room with his resolve. “I’ve known it for some time now. It’s that same lesson Floyd once taught me out in the fields. How Jesus arrived too late, and Lazarus was already dead. How Mary and Martha cried, and even Jesus wept.”

  The room sat quiet, each eye aware of the next around it.

  “You see,” he continued, “there’s a time and place for everything. And God can reverse even the sting of the grave and pry life from its cold hands when the time is right.”

  “Hallelujah!” Floyd shouted. “It’s never too late.”

  Floyd smiled, thinking he understood Fletcher’s heart, although none of us truly did. Still, Fletcher smiled in response to Floyd’s excitement, a pretentious grin that seemed to pity those around him as he went on to say, “It just takes a while sometimes for things to happen. That’s all. Until then they can have it. They can have all they want for now.”

  Following these words, Fletcher ate quietly for the remainder of his meal. Mr. Kern grunted increasingly more toward Fletcher’s end of the room, yet the young man remained unmoved by these sounds and did not take his eyes away from his food or that silver tray that sat closest to him even once.

  When the infant was born, Jesse named him David. With Jesse at work in the fields and Elise serving a white family somewhere out near the dividing line of Morgan City and Greenwood proper, the young boy was kept inside the house by Silva, his cries reaching that upstairs quarters each day where Fletcher sat.

  These cries were to be expected as David had been born in the midst of chaos all around him. That night of his birth bore witness to a terrible storm that descended upon Greenwood, with the threat of tornadoes almost certain in the mix of darkness and lightning that surrounded us—where one’s only sight came during those brief flashes of light when there was, for once, a chance at knowing what actually awaited us on the outside. The rain was constant and its splatters a ricocheting of thumps from the tin roof of the shed and back stables. The streams formed rivers, and the puddles were lakes that drowned every crop and made the walkways impossible to navigate. Despite this bit of harshness, the baby emerged healthy and wonderfully plump. He had a head full of hair and one could add up ten fingers and ten toes, all of which Jesse counted as he held the boy for the first time. Silva was also there for the delivery, although Fletcher had not attended, and neither did Floyd or myself, as Jesse had not informed us of the birth until after it occurred, when he recounted the experience minute by minute.

  David was a crier, his screams louder than any child’s I’d ever known. Not necessarily a burden on Fletcher, whose mood could not be swayed any higher or lower than it already was, but surely a miserable sound for Mr. Kern who, if he could, would send curses at the mere sight of that child inside his home. Mr. Kern’s disgust was still visible in other ways, despite his paralysis, as the old man would spit each time he saw the boy, falling victim to the most helpless display of spite. We’d often find the old man in his room with his shirt collar soaked, his loss of those key motor skills not allowing him to spit any farther than his own chin and so it would dribble down and collect wholly
at his collar and sit there for hours until we’d cleaned him up. His eyes would be a blistering red and his nostrils a hissing of breaths in and out so rapidly that it seemed he never enjoyed a full breath from that day on, not with that boy inside the house.

  By the time David turned two, it was impossible to keep him still and even more difficult for Silva to keep up with the toddler. Together we’d moved most of the fragile items to higher shelves and placed blockades around certain rooms and corners, yet inevitably he’d find some new item not meant for children in the living room or kitchen, and then, just as Silva retrieved it from his hands, her mind ringing with that instinctual pride at having caught the youngster in another bout of mischief, he’d find another and so on and so on, this game persisting for hours each day. Silva’s health had diminished at a steady rate since the Missus’s death, yet somehow I’d missed it until one evening I looked up to find that limp she had to be increasingly strained and her face gaunt and unresponsive. Her eyes drooped as if her skin were made of black putty and held not the muscles to keep it taut. Her grace was exhausted in stilted legs that caused her top half to slump upon itself and that wisdom, fatigue, fear, and trust in God to now weigh so heavily that she seemed to be forever dragging her feet. Still, David brought a certain amount of joy to her heart that could be seen in the extra care she took for the boy as well as his love for her, which she swallowed up in long hugs and constant pampering that left him completely spoiled rotten but was surely the only thing that kept her alive.