“I guess I’m ready when you are.” Bart opened the floor. All while he stuffed his pipe, he was trying to figure on what could be going on now? He knew it had to have something to do with Mama Jojo, but what?
“No Bart, I’m not ready and neither will you be.”
Bart went quiet and lifted his pipe to his mouth taking a couple of puffs, eying her trying to guess what this could be about.
“You want it hard from the top and we argue through the rest? Or, you want a story to lead you to it?” She asked softly, her stomach tied into knots.
Bart moved his pipe away and took a long and deep breath, “It’s that bad? First tell me what it’s got to do with?”
“Shawn.”
Bart went still.
They both sat quiet. Bart staring at Gert and Gert staring at the wash cloth.
A whole minute went by and then Bart finally said, “That boy is mine, I know it!”
“The man you made of the boy, yes Bart… that’s yours. But - I can’t be certain - you the man that gave him life.” There, she said it.
“I have seen his birthmark! My birthmark! My father’s birthmark! You tell me how that could be, if he’s not mine?!” Bart demanded to know, sick and tired of this coming up between them again.
Gert closed her eyes a moment, saying a quick prayer. This was the easy one, there was still Shawn. She jumped startled as he boomed out banging the table, “GERT! Answer me!”
“Fine, buckle in Bart, buckle in - here it is, full as I know it. Mama Jojo… is, or was Edwin Piercey’s aunt. Edwin Piercey’s father was her younger brother. He was born, long before you came along-…”
“Long before I came along? What in the world has that got to do with me?”
“Let me get it all out Bart and you’ll find out.”
He nodded towards her, “Go on then - so far, not making a bit of sense.”
“Bart…” Gert called his name exasperated, “… Mama Jojo’s little brother’s name, in full is Jacob Edward Piercey… McPherson. Your father Bart, was his father as well. Your father, was Edwin Piercey’s grandfather. Edwin Piercey was not a Piercey at all - he was a McPherson. Your half nephew. He was your family - your flesh and blood family. Shawn… could be his -or- yours. I can’t be sure which. I too thought for sure he was yours, because of the birthmark. But, when Mama Jojo saw you - heard you speak - when you knelt before her, you brought Jacob Paul back to her. Because of you, she realized that once more, McPherson’s were in her life and taking care of her. You see, your father Jacob Paul, was in love with her mother, Virginia Ruth Piercey. Your brother - your big brother is still alive and living in California. They moved there, after… his son was - so horribly tortured, murdered. He, may just be… Shawn’s grandfather. That’s why I have to come clean… that man lost his son, and all he may have left of him, is our Shawn.”
“Yooou! It never ends! Yooou - lord have mercy!” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Gert went quiet because she needed the breather. Bart couldn’t speak for the moment as his head and throat had closed up on him. Immediately, that night so long ago, came rushing back at him with a vengeance. Greenville, South Carolina - he’d crept back there in the middle of the night to scare that Edwin away from his Gert. He hadn’t intended to hurt him, just scare the life out of him. Only to come upon a group doing things that had him screaming and sobbing out to God in the night. Horrified, instead of stopping it, saving him, Bart had turned and left him in their hands. That night still haunted him to this day. Now… it would do so but even worse.
Finally he spoke again, trying to make sense of it all, “My father kept a black woman while he was a Baptist minister? Married to my mother? The hypo-…”
“Weren’t you listening!?” Gert cut him off, “I told you, it was long before you were born! Long before he married your mother! Before he became the Baptist minister you knew him as. He was a young man, and he loved a black woman, Virginia Piercey - Mama Jojo’s mother. He would have done anything for her. Even marry her. But it was against the law back then. She, Virginia ran him off, made him stay away. Finally, years later - he met your mother, married her, had you, your sisters.”
Bart sat his pipe down. Stopped. Turned in his chair. Stopped. After sitting frozen a moment, he rose and stood as if facing what he’d just heard. Finally, he strode out the back door straight to his pole barn. He couldn’t get Edward’s cries out of his head now. What he knew, took on another form entirely. Suddenly he was there again, and instead of leaving, in his mind, he was being forced forward, held in place, to stand and watch what they may have done to him.
Done because he didn’t shoot off that gun and stop them.
His nephew.
His father’s grandson.
His half-brother’s son.
He had a brother.
He had always wanted a brother. Never thought if he had one, he would be black - because he never thought about such things. Gert is the one that introduced him to the mixed world of white folks going for black, and black going for white. It was something he never imagined for himself. It was something he never imagined that his own father had been in the midst of. Now, here he was to find, that not only had his father… but in California, he had a brother. A half black older brother named after his father. Bart wondered did he use the name Piercey, or McPherson?
Bart was standing braced with his arms straight and the heels of his palms pressed hard on his work bench.
He kept hearing that boy scream. Crying, praying for somebody to save him - and he’d run off. “Lord God Almighty, get it out of my head… Lord please, get it out of my head… I didn’t know Lord, how was I supposed to know?” He pushed at that counter until his arms shook. “DAMN YOU GERTRUDE MCNEIL - DAMN YOU - TO - HE-E-ELL!!!”
Gert had walked out to the back porch across from the pole barn and could hear him, heard him shouting loud and clear. “I’m already there Bart… I’m already there.”
She stood on that porch staring off into space for countless moments. No true telling of how long, but it was a while when Bart’s presence startled her, made her look down at him.
“You keep this between us for now, you hear… I need some time with this.”
Gert at this point truly had nothing to lose and replied, “Why? I’m tired of it. Besides, Mama Jojo knows.”
“She don’t know what you know!” He replied angrily.
“Are you telling me, you don’t want me to tell Shawn the truth?”
“You don’t know what the truth is yourself! Do you!?” He barked.
All of a sudden Gert got it, a crooked smile broke her pensive gaze, “I see - I see now. You don’t want your boy to know, because then he’d come to realize you abused him - you’d lose all of his respect. Because you thought him somebody’s else's son… a black man’s son.” Gert shook her head, “Heaven forbid he know the truth - that his daddy was a bit of a racist bigot-…”
“You shet your mouth!” He warned her.
“So much so,” She carried on, “…that you beat him and treated him like he was your-…”
He rushed up the steps, “I said shet your mouth!”
“…own lil’nigga slave.”
Bart backhanded her so hard she fell sideways into the swing.
Gert lay still and stunned, it was the first time that Bart had hit her. Never like that. She tasted blood.
“Gert?” Bart stood in disbelief that he’d done it himself. He walked to her, lifted her, “I’m - I’m sorry Gert, Lord God, I’m so sorry. You… you try me Gert… you push me so far, it’s a miracle I haven’t lost my mind.”
She was mad, mean and didn’t care, “Hitin’ me like that, you have lost your mind. You can let me go now, I can stand just fine on my own feet.”
“I need time Gert, to make sense of it all. How you expect me to take this? I thought we were through it Gert, I thought we were though it. Now, you tell me all this… how’s a man supposed to take it?”
“That ain’
t what’s eating you. You scared your boy, your Shawn is gonna hear the truth and know… know that all that time, all you did to him, was because you thought yours, your own was better than him. That is what’s eating at you. You so shamed of it, you can’t face it and see it in his eyes. In time, your precious girls are gonna know it - Kathy-Ann and Shanna. Derrick and Jake.”
Angry, Bart let her go and backed away from her. “Go, you wanna go? Get the hell away from here then. This is all your doing anyway! You the cause of it all. Everything wrong with my kids, wrong because of you! God knows you always been a sinful, wicked woman. I became what I am because of you. I tried to do what my father made me - see - I didn’t wanna marry you. I knew all about how you were traipsing through the woods following behind… that - boy.”
“That what? Your flesh and blood!”
“Yes… my flesh and blood - you got him killed! I have to hear him screaming, crying and knowing that he died, because of you! Both of us suffered in hell, because of you.”
“What do you mean, you hear him screaming?” She asked with wide eyes, ignoring his jabs at her.
“I was there. That night they took him, tortured him - I was there. I could’ve stopped’em - but it was too late, too many-…”
“YO-O-O-OU COWARD! YOU DID THAT?!” She wailed screaming, “YOU TOOK PART IN THAT?!”
“Nooo! I wasn’t with them!”
“LIAR - how else would you know! You was there - you were with them!”
“I WAS NOT WITH THEM! That kind’ah evil is not in me! I came upon it happening, it was too late for me to do anything about it! I’m not that evil!” He shouted out in his defense.
Gert was hot, “Can’t prove that by me, look what you did to an innocent little boy! My Shawn went through HELL - HELL at your hands! He was a child! You can call me wicked all you want - but I’m not guilty of hurting anyone like that.”
“Hm, bet Edwin Piercey wouldn’t say that, after all, he’s dead because of you.”
Gert slapped him and hard. Then stood waiting for him to hit her again, to hit her back.
Bart stood unable to move. He was tired, it was all too much. The revelation of his father. The fact that he had a black brother. That Shawn just might not be his, but his nephew’s son! And that he was guilty… of treating the boy with a roughness that today, would be labeled as child abuse. He knew it was so. So many times he’d regretted it. But in truth, it wasn’t until after he saw that birthmark that made him think Shawn was his, that rushed him with those feelings of regret. Because that would mean that he’d done all of that to his own. Truth, in a way, he had - to Derrick, and times to Jake. That too he must face. He couldn’t stand this horrid picture of himself. There were times when he knew, being in that ugly war, had broken something in him. His thinking, and yes, his hidden bigotry along with what he’d seen there, wrecked him. Instead of getting help, instead of giving him time - his father had forced him to marry Gert, to stand by his engagement to her. He did what he was told and then went about wrecking his children as well. However instead of taking the blame for it all, he still felt the more of it belonged to Gert. She made him do it.
She turned away from him. She was tempted to leave again, but - this was her home. She’d raised her children in that house. Her boys along with their father had added room, after room to it until it was a farmhouse to be proud of. Yet - it would seem, they’d just sucked all the warmth and joy it once had, clean out of it.
“You gone be the death of me Gert.” Bart finally said.
“We all gotta die some way… it might as well be by me.”
Series 13 - Episode 105 - Chapter 317
Two days later in California
Reporters were out in full force, lights were flashing as Oscar T. forced himself through a throng of shouting men and women desperate to get a reply from him. They were everywhere, at the bank, at his new home, places he liked to dine out at, simply to have a drink - but now, since his statement a few days ago, he was safe nowhere. Reporters were rows deep as his attorney and bodyguards cut a path for him to struggle through to his waiting limousine.
He’d said all he had to say on the matter, they needed to go and hound his daughter for the rest of the answers to their questions. He wasn’t the one who married Everett Styles, aka - Shawn Everett McPherson, she had! He’d warned her and that Jeremiah Franklin to back off! It was obvious they’d taken his warning as a threat against them. Ha! He was better at playing the game than that. She thought she’d put the fear of God in him, threatening him that he’d better not mention Shawn or his past again. Well, he’d had some time to think about that, and decided he had nothing to fear from her. Besides, they could blame themselves for everything, especially his daughter because they’d forced him to play his hand. He knew her, this would hurt her far more than anything else he might do - hurting that backwoods hick she’d married. Reason she threatened him if he dare spoke of what he knew about Shawn’s past. He had too much on the man to keep it to himself. If she had laid off of him, pulled that black mad-dog Jeremiah Franklin off of him, maybe he would have kept all to himself. Yet, the audacity of them, coming to his home accusing him of killing Bea Rose and numerous other black women around the area. Talking crazy nonsense about how they had evidence that lead back to him. He didn’t care what they had! He was untouchable and the sooner they learned that, the better. She let that Jeremiah push him too far and the last straw was when the detectives actually carried out the indignity of having him brought in for questioning. If the rest wasn’t enough, they also brought up the attack of his daughter. Hearing that nailed it! So she’d gone to them with that anyway stating her belief that he was behind the attack. It was time to show her how bad daddy could be.
Yes, that had been the last straw!
“Are you insane?” He’d blasted Dt. Johnson and Gleason - they were really getting on his nerves questioning him, “You’re talking about my own flesh and blood daughter!” He responded so genuinely it was as if they were crazy believing he’d done these things. His lawyer hushed him. He’d been perfectly still and quiet up until that theory was dropped before him. Saying the money, the prestige, the power of the Wherrington’s wealth and banking was the motive. They knew, that he’d only married into it, whereas the women were born into it. They proceeded to present the various details of evidence Jeremiah Franklin had gathered against him. Slapping several photographs before him of black women - found dead. Pointing out how they had a remarkable resemblance to the late, Bea Rose Franklin - found dead by vehicle of so called suicide. They pointed out the strange coincidences of how the other women who so strongly resembled her, died similarly. A few of the others had been attacked it would seem. For Dt. Gleason to insert, “What? Did you think it would be smart to mix it up a bit? Were you thinking, ‘Bet not suicide them all, might make someone suspicious?’ Maybe throw in a few attacks, huh?” She taunted, watching him closely.
Of course his lawyer had him remaining quiet at that point, and turned on them himself, arguing, “Make up your minds, which did he do, set his own daughter up? Or kill these black women?”
Gleason shrugged, “Why not both? Crazy don’t draw a line.”
His attorney went about using laws and other courtroom jargon to make mincemeat of the charges considering the majority of the deaths were due to suicide. Ignoring the motive, the theory, the possible evidence. Through the remainder of it, Oscar T. sat as cool as a cucumber - chomping at the bit to teach his daughter once and for all to step away from daddy. What she didn’t know, is that he had even more on Shawn Everett McPherson, and before this was all done, he would be flooding the media with all that he had on him. And there wouldn’t be a thing she or her mother could do to stop him. Oh yeah, he was ready - in fact, he had nothing to lose. He belonged to a secret society that meant, he was above the law.
If it weren’t for that Jeremiah Franklin, he wouldn’t be going through this. The only reason they were even pursuing the case was because of what tha
t man brought forward because of the cries for help from various family members. People died every day, he was thinking and right in that second, his mind flashed back to Bea Rose fighting him, slapping his arm - clawing at his hand. Saw her dead eyes as he stepped away from hanging her. He blinked and looked away from all present. His heart was going. Doing that to her had broken his heart. Had changed him forever more - so that he no longer had limitations as to what he’d do. He’d been looking at the table top, and as his eyes went up, there she stood.
His Bea Rose.
She smiled at him.
A smile that said, he was not going to get away with this. Somehow, some way, she was saying, he would get his comeuppance. She walked up to him, right in front of everyone. Oscar T. turned away, trying to play it off, but turning red. He could feel her touching him. The icy coolness of her fingers tracing the shell of his ear.
She laughed then, that deep throaty wicked laugh that hit the core of his being that only he could hear.
Oscar T growled a snarl whispering, “Get out’ah here.”
She stretched out on the table before him, sexily, teasing him, stroking his cheek, tugging on his bottom lip. He was getting redder by the moment.
In that sassy black dialect, and a lifted brow, Dt. Gleason leaned at the corner of the table adjacent from Oscar T asking him, “Emmm, who you talking to?”
His eyes went to her, but he said not a word, just a sardonic slight smile. Pretending that Bea Rose wasn’t there, torturing him after she rudely left him for days and days. If she could ignore him, then he could ignore her as well, and did.
Dt. Gleason lifted her brow higher thinking, Lord, ain’t nothing crazier than a filthy rich, greedy, privileged white man who think he above the law. Bet he one of the untouchables too.
Beauty of Man and Woman - Volume 13: Bomaw Page 33