by Joe Coccaro
The Greyson slave girls were treated warmly, according to oral history at least. So warmly, in fact, that slave descendants still living in Northampton County claimed to be of Greyson lineage. Just like the six children created by the couplings of enslaved concubine Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, the illegitimate Greyson offspring were never given the family name. Hattie forgot to mention this widely known, but seldom discussed, tidbit to Carter when he was at the real estate office earlier in the day. So, she called him that evening and warned him not to talk to Jessep about the Civil War or slavery.
“Sore subjects,” she said. “Jessep is still in denial that the South was defeated in what he calls ‘The War of Northern Aggression.’ Even worse, like I mentioned before, our family line strayed. Don’t bother me none. I know we have darker blood cousins in the county with Greyson blood in their veins. I know who they are, and I swear one of them is the spittin’ image of Jessep, just not as pale. If Jessep mentions the war, just zip it and nod politely.”
***
On the Topp Kat that night, Rose and Malcolm were inside sipping beverages and staying dry. The rain came steady, but with more warm summer kisses than cold slaps. The inlet by C Pier and the Bay were mirror still—not a ripple or bending reed; not a cackle from red-winged blackbirds nor squawk from a hungry egret, just the gentle tap of summer drops hitting the placid surface. Not even gulls patrolling for scraps. Not even a bloodlusting feline lurking by the dock for fish scraps or a disoriented mallard chick. Everyone and everything seemed hunkered down in a dreamy state, sedentary and calm. The earth’s rhythm was a lullaby here, a wispy swoon.
“You recover from last night, my dearest?” Malcolm always called Rose “my dearest.” He was friend, brother, father, confessor, and coach to Rose, a bedrock of emotion, a safe landing when life’s waters tossed her around like a toy boat on a choppy lake. He looked chipper tonight, which wasn’t unusual. Malcolm always seemed chipper even when annoyed. He relished life, and now seven decades into it, he coveted it more than ever. Time was now Malcolm’s currency. Time was more valuable to him than academic admiration or the British pound.
“Money is in infinite supply, and fame is fleeting. Time, oh sweet time, is the rarest commodity. Spend it wisely,” he once wrote Rose in a birthday card.
Malcolm was still a handsome man, thick legged, only a slight paunch, and with a trimmed gray beard and full head of hair to match. He wore tweed jackets, long-sleeve shirts year-round, and alternated between the music of Yanni and Yo-Yo Ma. His Scottish was brogue-lite, not in the muffled, dense rolling vowels and trembling like Scotty on Star Trek. He was an educated man, a PhD who prided himself on articulation and could easily have held his own in the British Parliament. Mostly, Malcolm was a joyous man, though never married and without children. Perhaps, Rose often thought, that was the secret to his demeanor. He avoided the inevitable head-on collisions that come when two people nest and procreate. “Monogamy,” he would say to Rose, “works for swans because they only live for twenty years. If they lived much longer, there would most certainly be a swan divorce court.”
Malcolm provided Rose with thinking points, not dictates. He was wise, but not perfect, and sometimes a bit too cynical.
“Well, my dearest, is the young Carter a suitor or a mere plaything?”
“Oh Malcolm, why always so crass? Can’t he be a mere distraction, or an innocent interlude? He’s cute and a tad low on self-esteem, which makes him irresistible. He can drink without getting sloppy or sleepy, and he has a college-boy naïveté. Let’s just call him entertainment for now. Plus, he’s smart and used to be a newspaper journalist. He knows the locals, and I think he can help us.” Almost as if hearing an alarm in her head, Rose turned. “There’s Carter now.”
Carter had hopped from the pier onto the deck and was now lightly knocking on the cabin door.
“Enter at your own peril,” Malcolm chortled. “Were your ears burning? My dearest here was just gushing about you.”
“And a good evening to you,” Carter said as he slid the door closed behind him.
Rose stood and greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. “Wine?”
“Please,” Carter said. “Chardonnay if you have it.”
“One white coming up.” Rose smiled, and her eyes bubbled like freshly uncorked champagne. Malcolm noticed her buoyancy.
“So, what brings you here, besides the obvious?” Malcolm started.
Carter locked eyes with Rose and smiled, feeling the heat in his cheeks. “I did some poking around town today, and I think I have something—or should I say someone and some place—lined up for tomorrow morning that you may find fascinating and helpful. We’re going a couple miles south of here to a farm on the next creek over. It’s called Greyson Plantation, and it’s the epicenter of the greatest geologic calamity ever in North America.”
“Do tell, young knight,” Malcolm piped.
“Have you heard of the Chesapeake Bay Crater? If not, I’d suggest you boot up your PCs tonight and put Google to work. Once you’ve done that, see what you can learn about magnetic anomalies. It may be the source of the woo-woo around here.”
“Woo-woo? I thought that was a sound trains make,” Malcolm chortled again. “I am not sure I’ve encountered such profundity before. Sounds quintessentially American, like Cheerios.”
“Sounds like a Saturday morning kiddie cartoon to me.” Rose chuckled. “But we’re very familiar with the term. Some people use it to mock our work.”
“Bring your Ouija board and a couple notebooks,” Carter said. “I’ll pick you up at eight forty, sharp. Oh, and professor, bring a bottle of your best sherry and a poem if you have one. If not, Rose needs to wear a short skirt and tight top. Our host has discriminating tastes from what I’m told. He likes his wine and women sweet.”
CHAPTER 13
CARTER ARRIVED HOME worried about the poetry thing. Hattie had made it sound important to impress Jessep with sherry and poetry. Why poetry? He wasn’t sure. Seemed odd, but so many things around Cape Charles seemed about twenty degrees off-center. Malcolm would cover the sherry, but even that high-minded Scot likely didn’t have Keats or Byron by his bedside.
Carter booted up his PC and opened a file he called “Musings.” It was mostly a list of rhymes and limericks he had jotted over the years when bored at work or when sick of watching TV at home. He wasn’t a poet, not even close, but he deeply admired the poetry of American author Jim Harrison and always loved song lyrics. None were better than Bob Dylan’s, Joni Mitchell’s, and Notorious B.I.G’s.
As a teen, he read lyrics on album covers or song sheets as he listened repeatedly. Ultimately, Carter concluded that he had neither the courage nor imaginative dexterity to write music for public consumption. He remained artistically closeted out of practicality. Writing newspaper articles, he’d found, was a vulgar substitute for real creativity—lifeless, stagnant, and pedantic. But chasing and typing facts and arranging them in a reverse pyramid of importance was steady work that had paid the rent. At least he could call himself a writer.
“Newspaper work is cleaner than the Ford plant and pays more than Walmart,” he’d joke.
Carter scrolled through his list of musings, wincing at the idiocy of some. But there was one that seemed to fit his quest with Rose, an aborted effort inspired by a Dylan song and penned by Carter after his session back in late spring with Kate Lee-Capps, the psychologist. Carter had thought about sending the rhyme to Kate as a cathartic admission that he was moving on with life. But Carter being Carter, he’d chickened out. He had dwelled on Kate a lot and feared she would think the poem clumsy or juvenile and dismiss him as morose. Carter had felt like a hormonal eighth grader with a hard-on for his just-out-of-college sexy English teacher. Acting on such impulse would leave a wake of foreboding, he’d reasoned, and shatter the sexual fantasy of Kate visiting him at night.
The poem, Carter had decided, would remain his undisclosed tribute to Dylan. He always conside
red Dylan America’s greatest poet, not a mere folk singer. He would celebrate mightily when the aged rocker received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Stockholm would provide Carter and the world with a moment of sanity by celebrating Dylan, a peacemonger, and by so doing snub headlining hatemongers like Putin, Netanyahu, Trump, and Kim Jong-un.
Carter pulled up the rhyme and printed out a copy:
Trust What You See
Streets fill with water, the beach with blowing sand
Here comes the wind, I’m taking a stand
The howls and hollers, the screams don’t scare me
Legs stuck in the mud, please leave me be
Look to the right, then look to the left
I’m crossing to the other side, with some distress
I worry that something big will run over me
You can’t hide from what you can’t see
Please think with your mind, not with your heart
That’s the only way to get a real fresh start
If you don’t believe in yourself, you can’t trust what you see
Walkin’ in the dark scares the hell out of me
Sometimes I care, most times I don’t
I’m not often right, so I don’t often gloat
Honesty gets you more, and is easier spoke
Please accept the truth, so I can stay afloat
Bobby Dylan says all the truth adds to one big lie
That the person who you love’s not the apple of your eye
Love that starts hot, runs out of steam
At first I was confused, now I see what Bob means
He means open your mind and close your heart
That’s the only way to get a fresh start
Believe in yourself, so you can trust what you see
Imagination lights the dark sea
Carter winced when he finished reading. Christ! Maybe not such a good idea. He decided to take the copy with him anyway, but hold it in reserve and reveal it only if relations with Jessep needed thawing. God, I hope old Malcolm comes through with the sherry and Rose shows some cleavage.
***
Hattie’s napkin instructions were spot-on, and the next day, Carter and his cargo ambled down a paved road flanked on both sides by century-old oaks and sycamores. If only they were draped with Spanish moss, the entrance to Greyson Plantation would feel antebellum. The paved top turned to gravel, which crunched under the tires of Carter’s SUV. Puddles formed in ruts bludgeoned by tractor and truck tires, and the wind blew droplets from tree leaves on his windshield. Gray clouds, careening out to sea like a surfer on a wave, made it feel more like five in the morning than nearly nine.
The gravel turned to dirt as the trio passed the main house, a red brick structure three stories high with thick, white porch columns and windows that were at least eight feet tall. The roof was slate, with patches exposed where the heavy shingles unhinged during storms and slid crashing to the ground. Hitching posts by the front porch sat rusted and peeling along the circular driveway, making it easy to imagine horses and carriages staged like taxicabs waiting by the grand entrance.
“Magnificent, absolutely magnificent,” Malcolm piped from the backseat. He craned his neck sideways as they rolled past the tired structure.
The house sat on the bank of a tidal creek, the view obstructed by willows as thick as a horse’s mane but as light on the wind as gosling down. The branches swayed like ghostly arms with the slightest breeze. About twenty yards behind the main house stood a dock on pilings battered by storms and bowed with age. Next in line was a round building with two thick brick chimneys jutting like smokestacks from a refinery. Carter slowed to give Rose and Malcolm a better look.
“I believe that is an oyster house,” Malcolm said. “Inside, I believe you’ll find two large fire pits used to roast oysters and probably other tasty bivalves like mussels and clams. I’ve read about such places. They were venues for social gatherings, a place where families and friends gathered to celebrate and feast. Some of these old oyster houses were big enough to host dances and weddings. This one must have been grand in its day.”
Rose rolled down her window and snapped a few pictures with her iPhone.
“I’ll text them to you, Malcolm.”
The dashboard clock registered one minute until nine. And, at that second, Carter spotted a man standing on the narrowed path leading to the next building down the line.
“That must be the guest cottage, and standing next to it must be Jessep Greyson,” Carter said. He rolled the car forward the last few hundred feet, and a large brown dog stormed it. Malcolm’s eyes widened.
“Hunter, heel!” a stern voice commanded. The brown Labrador retreated and sat, its block head even with Jessep’s right hip. “Come on out. He’s friendly. Just don’t want him jumping on you. It’s a low tide, and he’s been chasing muskrats by the boat dock. He’s caked with mud.”
Rose stepped from the SUV, and just as Carter had hoped, she exposed just enough skin in the right places to magnify her beauty without appearing sultry. Jessep’s eyes froze on her like a deer staring into a poacher’s spotlight.
“Good morning, my fine lady, and welcome to Greyson Plantation. I’m Jessep Greyson.”
“And good day to you, sir.” Rose blushed and felt like she should curtsy as Jessep tipped the brim of his summer-weight homburg and gently cupped her hand and kissed it behind her knuckles. Jessep’s eyes locked on hers; his were kind, but with a playful deceit of Rhett Butler. He looked like Clark Gable too, minus the mustache.
Jessep turned toward Malcolm and Carter and tipped his hat again. He wore a long-sleeve, collared white cotton shirt, gray slacks, and square-toed boots—practically the same attire he wore year-round. In cooler months, he layered on a vest, coat, or scarf.
“Good day, gentlemen. So nice to have visitors. Cousin Hattie speaks very highly of y’all, and I trust her judgment implicitly. It appears as though the morning showers have relented, so perhaps we can take a stroll in a bit. But first, may I interest you in coffee, perhaps with a splash of libation as sweetener?”
“I believe I can help you with that,” Malcolm offered. He handed Jessep a bottle of sherry.
“Why thank you, fine sir,” Jessep said. He examined the label and looked pleased. “A Napoleon Hidalgo. Very nice. A classic Sanlứcar, nutty, and delightful with morning coffee. Shall we?” Jessep extended his arm toward the cottage. He held open the door and motioned to Rose to pass through first. She wore a tight denim skirt, which Jessep eyed intently as she stepped past him. Carter winked at Malcolm, optimistic that they had made a positive first impression.
***
If it were 1860 or thereabouts, Jessep Greyson would be magazine-cover worthy. He was a handsome man of well over six feet three, thin but not frail. At fiftysomething, he had a full head of slightly wavy Dutch hair, more black than gray. His mutton chops flared almost to his square jawline. They gave him the appearance of an Amish man, but with more refined features and better clothes. He had long legs and leaned ever-so slightly forward when walking, as if using gravity to propel himself. Each stride seemed to cover twice the length of the average man. A child could never keep up.
Most striking were his bluish-gray eyes that glowed as if powered by a battery. Some said the color mirrored Jessep’s Confederate soul.
Jessep was a Virginia gentleman. A strict chivalric code incubated in his DNA. He never raised his voice, rarely cursed, and always treated women like porcelain objects that would easily chip or break. When greeting an attractive woman, he would take her hand in his large, calloused palm and hold it gently as if cupping an egg. He would remove his brimmed hat, bow his head, and lightly kiss the back of a maiden’s hand. Young girls or prudish females would get the same greeting, minus the hand kiss. Jessep respected one’s personal space and, unlike Cousin Hattie, he was no hugger, unless in the privacy of his bedroom with a lover.
Jessep largely kept to himself on Greyson Plantation and never shied from its n
ame. The words farm or estate had become the politically correct euphemisms for Southern plantations, as if to disinfect American history. But make no mistake, Greyson Plantation was a plantation, a designation Jessep, his father, his grandfather, and the Greysons before them fully embraced.
Despite his Southern heritage, Jessep was no barbarian—and certainly no Trump supporter. Jessep rejected Trump for one unassailable fact: Trump was a Yankee. In fact, he was the worst kind: a vulgar, ostentatious New Yorker who mistreated women and bloviated with the vocabulary of a fifth grader. He was also an uncultured liar and brute who held no appreciation for fine liquor or literature. The only paintings Trump liked were oil portraits of himself, a man with unsurpassed vanity.
Jessep found Mrs. Clinton less of a pill, but one too bitter to swallow. He detested her pro-gay agenda and racial demagoguery. She hated guns, and he loved them. But it was her sense of entitlement he found most revolting—a condescending heir apparent to the throne of democracy.
He abhorred politicians who squandered tax dollars to curry voter favor, and he thought redistributing wealth through taxation was stealing. In fact, he hated nothing more than paying taxes—not to the county, the state, and by no means to the illegitimate IRS. To reduce his property tax bill, he allowed the exteriors of the buildings on Greyson Plantation to deteriorate. Inside, the buildings were tidy and maintained, but he refused to let tax assessors, or any public official, enter uninvited.
Jessep read lots of books on political philosophy. He squarely embraced the small-government convictions of Jefferson, but acknowledged the nation-building aspirations of Hamilton. He liked constructive debate moderated by facts and reason. What he despised was lurid shouting and schoolyardlike name calling of current candidates and the pandering, empty-headed TV commentators and their networks. Facebook? Twitter? Jessep had no use for them.