Original Love

by J. J. Murray

  It’s Ebony’s handwriting, it has to be. Was she following my career, such as it was, too? And then sending it on to the Captain?

  Wait a minute.

  I see other clippings from Marietta, all with dates in Ebony’s handwriting, all in chronological order. It’s almost like a scrapbook…that Ebony was keeping for Destiny. Destiny most likely sneaked this folder into Mr. Cutter’s office. So here’s some proof that Ebony hadn’t completely forgotten about me.

  She was still thinking about me.

  I sort through some other Marietta clippings and come up short when I see my marriage announcement from The Pittsburgh Press. No date on the back this time. Maybe the Captain saved this one, but that makes no sense. I had married wrong in his eyes. Why would he save a reminder of that awful day?

  No, Ebony probably saved it. Damn, she is definitely sending a message with this one. There are no more newspaper clippings after eighty-six. Is this when she gave up on me?

  I hold an envelope addressed to “Ensign John D. Underhill, USS Iowa,” the return address from St. Joseph, Missouri. I open it and see a short typewritten message on onionskin paper, the letters thick and imprecise, dated December 17, 1952:

  Dear Ensign Underhill:

  We would like to thank you for your heroic efforts concerning our son, Marcus. We are saddened by his passing but are gladdened to know that he did not die alone. May God bless you.

  The Minor family

  The Captain never mentioned this. God, there was so much he didn’t say! But I think I have enough information in my hands to find out the whole story.

  I run a few searches online for the USS Iowa and find an incredible amount of information on the Captain’s first ship at USSIowa.org. After a shakedown cruise in the Chesapeake Bay in ’42, the Iowa sailed to Newfoundland to turn away the Tirpitz, a German battleship, then carried President Roosevelt to the Teheran Conference. My father was on board with a president. What father wouldn’t brag about that to his son? In ’44, the Iowa sank a cruiser and a destroyer at Truk in the Pacific, was hit twice by enemy fire in the Marshall Islands, played a key role in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, survived a typhoon that sank three other ships, then sailed off to Okinawa, Luzon, and Leyte under Admiral “Bull” Halsey. My father lived history when he was Destiny’s age!

  After World War II, the Iowa was decommissioned, then recommissioned in ’52 for Korea, where it earned the nickname “The Grey Ghost of the Korean Coast.” The Marines seemed to love the Iowa for softening up their landings, and the battleship served as the flagship for General Mark Clark, the Commander-in-Chief of the UN forces. The Iowa was even used as the Caine in The Caine Mutiny, which wasn’t one of the Captain’s favorite movies, but he watched it, probably to see his old friend. When the Korean War ended, the Iowa sailed around the world, stopping in Havana, San Francisco, Yakuska, Tokyo, Sasebo, Norfolk, England, Scotland, Norway…

  No wonder the Captain retired—he was tired!

  I click on a separate page for information on the USS Thompson—and here’s the entire story, complete with pictures of the damage to the Thompson, a destroyer and minesweeper. On August 20, 1952, shore batteries hit the Thompson, and the Iowa went to assist with the dead and wounded, pulling alongside the damaged ship. Four men were killed: Howard Joseph Connors, QMC, from New York City; William Rudolph Csapo, SA, from Bridgeport, Connecticut; James Edward Wolfe, SN, from Cuthbert, Georgia; and Marcus Lajoie Minor Jr., SN, from St. Joseph, Missouri.

  I run a search using “Marcus Minor” and come up empty. I try a few searches with “USS Thompson” and fare no better. I end up at the Web site for the Naval Historical Center, where I finally find more information.

  And it blows me away.

  Marcus Minor was black, an E3 just like the Captain. Minor and the three other men from the Thompson—all white—were celebrated in an integrated memorial service in 1952.

  An integrated memorial service. In 1952.

  Fifty years ago, my father held a black man who was dying. So why was he such a racist later in life? All those black men who came to his funeral thought of him as a hero. There has to be more to this story, and why was the Captain only an E3 after nearly ten years in the Navy? Minor is listed as a steward. Was the Captain a steward, too? Maybe he made all these friendships because they, too, worked in the mess hall. And all this time I thought my father, the Captain, was the captain of the Iowa.

  How does a man hold a dying man in his arms, listen to his last words, his last breaths, his last requests maybe—how does a man do that and later hate that man’s race with such passion, such venom? What my father did wasn’t an act of courage, was it? He was just comforting a fellow sailor. A white man comforting a black sailor in 1952 might not have been the norm, but…

  My brain hurts, but my heart…my heart feels full and whole again.

  I check to see if Destiny has replied, but I see an empty mailbox. I wonder if she has a tryout today. I can’t wait to see her dance. It would be nice to see someone with Underhill blood amaze an audience with dancing. All I ever did was make Ebony and Candace giggle and point.

  Candace. Yes, I need to see Candace. Candace and I need to have a nice, long chat.

  I take a quick shower, put on the same wrinkly clothes, and take a quick detour up Fairchild Street, where I see Marmaduke in the window again. A dog that size could fill up a room, but he doesn’t seem desperate. I know, how can you tell with a dog? And since the windows are spotless when they should be smeared with Great Dane drool, I know Ebony’s been by.

  It won’t be long now, Ebony. I’ll be back.

  After picking up a pack of Camels at the Southdown Community Market to thank Aunt Wee Wee, I cruise over to Grace Lane and park behind Gladys’s van.

  Gladys meets me at the door before I can knock. “Please tell me you know how to play spades,” she pleads.

  “I do.”

  “Good. Mary’s late—”

  “She’ll be late to her own damn funeral!” Candace yells.

  Gladys smiles. “Mary’s, um, a little forgetful, so it’s good you stopped by.”

  It sure is. I’m about to confront Grandma Mills.

  A card table has been set up in the living room, Candace in her wheelchair opposite Aunt Wee Wee, who slumps in a folding chair. Another woman in a wheelchair seems passed out on the table. I take a seat opposite her, Candace to my right, Aunt Wee Wee to my left. Perfect. Right smack dab in the middle.

  “You can play for Mary till the bitch get here,” Candace says.

  I smile at Aunt Wee Wee. “How you doing today, Aunt Wee Wee?”

  “I ain’t your Aunt Wee Wee, boy,” she says with a grimace.

  “She just mad,” Candace says, “cuz you got her in trouble.”

  Aunt Wee Wee slaps the table. “Bitch hasn’t let me smoke for two whole days.”

  “It’s added eight days to your life, Edwina,” Gladys says as she carries in a tray of finger sandwiches, setting it on the corner of the table near Candace. Wee Wee is short for “Edwina”? I don’t know which name I like better…or worse.

  “You ain’t my nurse, Gladys,” Aunt Wee Wee says. “An’ how you know it ain’t been smokin’ that’s kept me alive all these years? Sure as hell ain’t been these sandwiches. You ever hear of salt and pepper?”

  “They’re bad for you, and you know that,” Gladys says. “I’ll bring out some fresh lemonade in a moment.” She leaves for the kitchen.

  “She’s poisoning us, Candy, I just know it,” Aunt Wee Wee says.

  I slip the box of Camels out of my left pocket and place it in Aunt Wee Wee’s hand under the table. She takes it and gives me the tiniest wink.

  “What brings you by, Peter?” Candace says. “As if I didn’t already know.”

  I doubt that. “Oh, this and that.” I nod at my partner, her gray head still flat on the table. “Is she okay?”

  “Estelle!” Candace shouts, and even I jump.

  Estelle, an Hispanic woman a
lmost as ancient as Aunt Wee Wee, lifts her head lazily until her momentum carries the rest of her upper body back into the wheelchair. “¿Que?”

  “She don’t speak much English, Peter. You know your Spanish numbers?”

  “Si,” I say. “Me llamo Peter, Estelle.”

  Estelle shakes her head. “¿Que?”

  “She’s also hard of hearing,” Candace says. “From listening to too many Trini Lopez records, I suspect.”

  I see Estelle roll her eyes. Estelle can hear perfectly well. She’s playing with Candace, just like I’m about to do.

  “You got to deal for everyone, Peter,” Candace says. “That’s all Mary was good for.”

  I shuffle the cards slowly, deliberately. Thank you for the perfect opening, Candace. “I guess it’s my destiny to deal, huh? So, Estelle, what do you think of Grandma Candace here?”

  Candace’s eyes pop, but she doesn’t say a word. Gotcha.

  “She talks too loud,” Estelle says in perfect English. “And she always overbids.”

  “You can say that again,” Aunt Wee Wee says. “Bitch be thinking she can take every damn book every damn hand, and then she blame me when we don’t make it.”

  I continue shuffling as loudly as I can. I smile at Candace. “What are we playing to?”

  Candace purses her lips and squints. “Five hundred.”

  I offer a cut to Candace who waves me off, watching her continuing reactions out of the corner of my eye as I deal, counting slowly out loud as I place each card. When I get to the nineteenth card, which happens to go into Candace’s pile, I say, “Nineteen. A good age, nineteen, don’t you think?” I snap the card to the side of her pile.

  “The best,” Estelle says. “Now hurry up and deal the cards.”

  Candace’s eyes betray nothing, but her hands can’t keep still. And I haven’t even begun to deal—really deal—yet.

  Aunt Wee Wee collects her cards as I shuffle. “I remember when I was nineteen. Yep, I was always into mischief when I was nineteen.” I think Aunt Wee Wee is catching on. “I sure was into everybody’s damn business.”

  “Wee Wee, hush,” Candace says, her teeth clenched tightly. She gathers her cards and begins arranging them. “No one cares what it was like to live in the eighteen-hundreds.”

  I deal the rest of the cards and see a fairly useless hand. I might be able to take one book with a king of diamonds, but I don’t care.

  “I think I’ll bid three,” Aunt Wee Wee says. “Three’s a magic number, ain’t it, Pete?”

  I know she’s caught on now. “Sure is. Like a mother, a father, and a little baby girl, huh?” I look at Candace, who looks like a volcano about to erupt.

  “I bid seven,” Estelle says with a smile. She leans in Candace’s direction. “Good name for a dog, isn’t it, Candy?”

  Good name for a dog? When Estelle winks at me, I laugh. “Ebony named her dog after me?”

  Estelle shrugs. “As names go, Seven isn’t that bad—”

  Candace lets her cards fall to the table. “Now y’all hold on just a damn minute!” She stares at Estelle, then Aunt Wee Wee, then me. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”

  “I found her,” I say.

  “Found who?” Candace asks.

  “Destiny, though when she was little, Ebony called her ‘Dee.’”

  The corners of Candace’s mouth droop.

  Aunt Wee Wee struggles to her feet. “This a good time for a smoke.” She ambles behind Estelle and eases Estelle’s wheelchair from the table. “We’ll be in my room if you need us.”

  Estelle waves before they disappear down the hallway as Gladys brings in a tray of glasses brimming with lemonade. “We won’t be needing you for a while, Gladys,” Candace says. Gladys pivots and returns to the kitchen. Gladys is certainly well trained.

  “From what I understand,” Candace begins, “you didn’t do any findin’, boy. Destiny found you.”

  “True.”

  “You think you’re slick, huh?”

  “No. Just angry.”

  Candace scowls. “What you got to be angry about?”

  “A nineteen-year-old deception. I’ve been a father for nineteen years, and no one, not you, not Ebony, not even my own father told me.”

  Candace blinks several times and looks away. “Destiny’s been busy.”

  “At least somebody has. And your daughter has been busy, too. Did Ebony tell you that she called the cops on me last night?”

  Candace sighs. “She didn’t call them.” She turns to face me. “I did.”

  What the hell? “The cop said—”

  “So I lied to the cops and said I was Ebony Mills, could you please get that creepy man away from my house?”

  “But why?”

  “So my baby could go home to her house and get a decent night’s sleep, that’s why. Get it through your thick head, Peter. Ebony does not want to see you ever again.”

  “I’d rather hear it from her, if you don’t mind.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No, Candace, I don’t.” I collect the cards and stack them in a deck. “You lied about those so-called vacations, and you lied about the letters. You got those letters, and you kept them from Ebony, didn’t you?”

  Candace wrinkles her lips and nods. “I was protecting her.”

  “From what?”

  She leans forward. “From you.”

  “From me? Why? I loved her. I still love her!”

  “So?” She rolls back from the table. “So the fuck what, Peter? It’s too late now for any of that anyway.”

  “Too late for what?”

  She shakes her head and whispers, “I can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  She grips the arms of her wheelchair. “I’m going to tell it to you straight, and after that you are to leave, never to return to this house. Agreed?”

  I don’t like the sound of this. “Are you going to tell me everything or only what you want me to hear?”

  She smiles briefly. “Maybe you ain’t so dumb after all. I am going to tell you the truth, Peter, and let me tell you something: the truth hurts. Bad.” She straightens and becomes the queen I remember. “Now how you want to do this?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You want me to go on and on, cuz I can go on and on for a couple hours.” She wheels closer to me. “Come on, now, you’re a writer. Everybody in this family knows you’re a writer. You want to interview me or what?”

  “You know about the books.”

  Candace rolls her eyes. “Yes. ‘For E.’ You didn’t even try to disguise it.”

  “I wanted Ebony to notice.”

  “Oh, she noticed all right. Wish she hadn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “You never should have written them books, boy.”

  “Huh?”

  “They tore Ebony up.”

  They did? “How could they? They were tributes to her.”

  “Tributes? That what you call ’em? Shit, boy, they were too close to her heart. You wrote about the most intimate details of your relationship for all the world to read.”

  “I wrote about our best moments. Some of them were intimate, but—”

  “They were all intimate,” she interrupts. “Every last damn sigh, kiss, and smile. The fact is—since that’s all you want is facts today—the fact is that those books put her into a five-year depression that she’s only just coming out of, and here you are ready to spoil her comeback.”

  “She’s been…depressed? From my books? They were romantic comedies, for God’s sake!”

  “Boy, she still loved you, even after all those years away from you, and there you were writing books that said you still loved her—and you were married to some rich white bitch in Pittsburgh! ‘I love you, Ebony, but I’d rather be married to this wench.’ It would be enough to make anyone crazy. And now Destiny tells me you’re writing another one. It’ll put Ebony into a psychiatric hospital this time if you
do.”

  “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything, and don’t write anything either.”

  “But I’m…but I’m divorced. I’m free to see her. We can get back together again.”

  “You believe that? Shit, you’re sounding like one of your novels. In real life, Peter, that shit don’t happen, especially since the only way that girl got out of her depression was to hate you with as much passion as she once loved you. She called it hate therapy, pure and simple. Why you think she named her dog Seven? You’re nothing but a dog to her, boy. Nothing but a drooling, farting, shitting, shedding Great Dane.”

  “Maybe she named the dog Seven as a tribute to me,” I whisper.

  “Say what?”

  “Maybe it was a tribute, you know,” I say louder, “I’m man’s—or woman’s—best friend.”

  “Now you need therapy.”

  I sigh and stand. “Maybe I do.” I push in my chair for lack of anything else to do or say.

  “You gonna leave her alone now?”

  I look at the ceiling. “I guess I’ll have to.” I focus on one of Ebony’s watercolors on the wall, a jungle scene with a black panther lurking between palm trees. “I don’t want to, though. I just wish…”

  “What you wish?”

  “I wish a lot of things. I wish I didn’t have a racist father.”

  “He wasn’t so bad, a little salty around the edges, took some getting used to, but Destiny loved him.”

  I wish I did. “I wish I had never left Long Island. I wish you had let Ebony read those letters. I understand why you’re protecting her now, but what exactly were you protecting her from then?” She doesn’t answer. “And please tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t have to give you a mother’s reasons for why I didn’t want my only daughter messing with you, but I will. You ruined her, remember? You were irresponsible and got her pregnant. I tried to get her to get an abortion, but she wouldn’t hear it.” She smooths out her skirt. “I’m glad now she was so stubborn. Destiny is something else, isn’t she?”

  “She’s like a dream.”

  “A beautiful dream, and Ebony and I raised that child to be a beautiful dream. Don’t you be coming along fucking that up cuz you suddenly want to play daddy.”