Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction

by Russell, Vanessa

  Silver haired since her twenties, Marge stepped out onto the veranda with a tray of iced tea, still looking like a young Sheba even though she’d delivered Slingshot late in her mid-life. She said, “Thomas, why in the world are you standing there with your arms up like that.” I rolled my eyes and jerked my head up and she immediately knew the cause. “TJ, you come down here instantly!” she called out, coming down the veranda steps and onto the grass. She shielded her eyes to look up to the second floor balcony but of course it’s empty and now I’m looking foolish. She gently lowered my arms while saying, “I could shoot his daddy for teaching TJ to be so violent with that slingshot!”

  I sit very still, reading no more. Just staring. At one word. TJ.

  There could only be one TJ with a slingshot – he’d taught me to use one, with rocks aimed at Pepsi bottles. And only one silver-haired Marge – who now I know is my papa’s aunt … which makes TJ my cousin. Holey-moley we’re related! I’d been making out with my cousin – and he’d asked me to marry him! I think I’m going to blow my top. But I have to think first. This must be why he didn’t want his mother to know where I was living. But how could his last name be “Jackson”? And why would he want to marry his cousin? And why is Uncle Joe pushing us together?

  “Clary, I’ll take Uncle Joe’s breakfast tray in to his room,” I say the next morning.

  “You’re volunteering for abuse? I only do it cause I get paid for it,” she says with a chuckle. Then she turns from the stove to take a hard look at me. “What’s wrong, child? You look as weak as pond water.” She pulls out a chair at her working table. “Take a sit and I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.” She sets this down in front of me, slumped and sleepy in my seat. I yawn loudly and don’t eat. Big mistake.

  “Clary, I’m all discombobulated. Did you know that William Thomas Jackson the Third, or TJ, is in fact my cousin?”

  She stops fussing around me and returns to the stove, her back to me. “Don’t ask me nothing.”

  I stare at her backside wondering why and what to say but then I figure if I say anything, she’ll just high-tail it to her room behind the kitchen. I wait silently for the eggs from her skillet to be added to the tray and I take this out of the kitchen without another word.

  I’m relieved to see that Uncle Joe has a little color to his cheeks this morning. I’d be more hesitant to pounce if he looked like he was dying.

  I set the tray down on his bed table in front of him. His eyes roll over to me in surprise and he immediately attempts to sit up more, smoothing his scrimpy gray hairs. “Well, this is an honor, missy. You bringing me breakfast. That’s more than I been getting from you. More than a wave and a spit of gravel as you drive down my laneway.” His mouth slacks as he studies me. “What’s wrong now? You look like the backside of bad weather.”

  “Yes, it seems I’ve been giving that impression all morning,” I say dryly. I sit down and face him. “I haven’t been around much because I was doing what you told me to do. And that was to spend time with William Thomas Jackson the third.”

  “That’s a good girl,” he says with a nod. “Did he ask you to marry him yet? I know he thinks you’re cuter than a bug’s ear. What you need to do is—”

  “Why the hell would you want me to marry my cousin?” I blurt out, shocking myself. This isn’t the way I planned it.

  He plops his head on his pillow and closes his eyes, and I swear for the life of me, he’s faking it. I become madder yet.

  “Answer me!”

  He opens one eye, a mean eye, like looking into the eye of a rooster. “Don’t you talk to me in that tone, missy. I’m not so sick I can’t get a switch after you.”

  “Now you’re threatening me? What the hell is going on here? I want to know! I want answers now!” I’m shouting and it actually feels good; I didn’t know I had so much pent up inside.

  I’ve never seen someone so angry before; how his eye could turn redder from the inside-out, his face blotch red in patches. “This plantation is not going to some smart-ass kid and her bitch of a mother, I don’t care if you are my next of kin. I’ll do the right thing by your daddy, I owe him that as my brother, but on my terms. Do you hear me? On my terms!” He coughs a wicked deep-throated croup and truly does look sick now. “My terms,” he says hoarsely and takes a jagged breath. “My terms are, you will marry TJ and keep the plantation on the south side of the family, the right side of the family, if I have to beat you every step to the church house! Do you hear me, girl? Are you listening to me?” The more he says, the more his mouth foams in the corners.

  I sit immobilized, shocked, like watching a chicken turn into a vulture. He keeps saying Are you listening me, do you hear me, girl? as someone drags me out of the room. Suddenly Clary’s face is in mine. “What are you trying to do, Miss Katy, get yourself killed? Don’t you know what that man is capable of doing? He’d have you hanging from a tree, and there you are, taunting him, like holding meat up to a mad dog.” She shakes my arm. “What’s wrong with you, girl? Now you get on up to your room and read your papa’s journal, or a book, or take a long soak in the tub. You want me run you some bath water? Come on.”

  She mutters under her breath the whole way up there, and then turns on the bath water faucets, and stretches a towel up to block her view of me. “Now get undressed,” she says. “I’m not leaving til you do.”

  I do as she says and step into the tub. Papa’s journal still lays on the bed and this she gets and thrusts in my face. “Don’t say another word to anybody until you read some more and calm down.” I begin where I left off in his last entry.

  I’ve strayed with my thoughts again; seems I do that a great deal here lately. I think of one thing, then grab another … like a monkey swinging through the branches of a tree ... should I have the operation … should I tell Bess … should I tell Joe to go to …

  Oh yes, Joe. I was talking about Joe owing Uncle Willy money and plenty of it. And Joe using the green stuff for his investment in automobiles but not having much luck in selling them. Since Joe’s hurting and can’t deliver, he came to me for help. I can’t help him until I sell the Lighthouse; what I mean to say is, my manor - damn women have taken over and I don’t even think of it as mine anymore.

  Like I said, I went over to Uncle Willy’s to see if I could help in some other way. After the slingshot event, and after TJ ran off to kill a schoolteacher or something equally bad, Uncle Willy and I talked in his study and he convinced me that the best way for Joe to come even is to help Uncle Willy out with a few bootlegging deals. If we’d give him a hand with that, Joe is all square. We’d even come out ahead and I admit I could use some cash flow. The illegal part of it all bothers me but liquor shouldn’t be illegal and I’m not with the Bible tappers who believe it’s wrong. To quote Mark Twain, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”

  I told Uncle Willy we’d help him; for one thing you’re either with Uncle Willy or you’re against him, there’s no in-between. I also knew Joe would have no scruples in breaking the law. But now in my reflection of it all, I’m getting a tight feeling in my chest over it all. If I get caught, Bess would lose all respect. And to support an uncle who makes a great deal of white sheets and black skin disappear - in other words, is in charge of the local chapter of the KKK – that part I’m totally against. I’ve always been a supporter of the Negro community and hire one whenever I can. Those I got to know, like Lizzie and the hired hand I got out here working and sleeping in the barn, are hardworking and caring folks just looking to get by, no different than the rest of us. The problem with James is he’s not only working and sleeping, he’s hiding. Hiding from the likes of my own people, who lynched James’ brother, Chester, but James got away. Joe’s not happy about keeping him here, but I think we owe him. I’ve decided to better protect him by sending James and Chester’s wife and children up to the Lighthouse until James can find a job up there. James tells me Chester has five children and wit
hout their daddy, they’re all working as field hands, even their two-year old Isaac. James and his brother were “caught flirting” with two young white ladies, daughters of the local klansmen. “The KKK is not singling out niggers,” my uncle said, when I questioned him about it. “The KKK is spreading across the nation to protect Americans against immigrants coming in and taking our jobs, against Jews and Catholics trying to take over our religion, against Communists trying to take over our government.” Sure enough, my research found that there’s about three million men openly registered as members, as far away as California and Oregon, and it’s growing because of the loose immigration laws. I quoted Thomas Jefferson to Joe, “Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” And further told Joe that these “knights” of the KKK were damn un-American but he didn’t say one way or another. Plenty of fidgeting though, which made me more suspicious of his own affiliations.

  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 quest
ions 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.