A Family Trust

by Ward Just

  “Of course,” he said. The Robertses were an old family in Dement, and he’d heard Amos speak the name. They were said to be the oldest colored family in town.

  “Well,” she said. “He was certainly moved by the service. He was weeping.”

  “That figures,” Kerrigan said.

  She sighed; really, Tom was hopeless sometimes. “What figures, Tom?”

  Kerrigan laughed and lit a cigarette. “Trust that old bastard to be a hero to his valet.”

  4.

  THE CEREMONY was brief and all of them lingered at graveside a moment, thanking the pallbearers and repeating endlessly what a beautiful service it had been. Elliott Townsend stood a little apart from the family, staring dully at the bronze casket. His hat was at its familiar rakish angle and his hands were deep in his overcoat pockets. He did not move at all when Charles walked over to him and put a hand on his arm and asked him to stop by the office at five-thirty. When he told Townsend who would be there the lawyer’s eyebrows went up a fraction. Charles said crisply “No time like the present.” Then he climbed wearily into the car and drove home with his wife and daughter.

  He told Luth Roberts to wait, that he’d be out again in thirty minutes. The three of them went inside and sat in the library. Lee asked him if he wanted a drink and he said no, and his daughter asked him if he wanted to take a nap and he said no, and for the moment they all sat and looked at each other.

  “It’s all over now,” he said at last.

  Lee said, “The church was certainly full. It was a lovely tribute.”

  “Four hundred,” Dana said. “Someone said.”

  He was half listening. Yes, it had been a full house. Then he remembered, feeling the anger rise in him. He looked at Dana. “You were extremely rude to Mr. Evans.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “We do not behave in that way in this family.” He leaned forward in his chair, staring at the girl.

  “Charles—” Lee began.

  “He is a man twice, three times your age.”

  Dana pulled her legs up under her on the sofa and tossed her head. “I apologize,” she said.

  Charles said, “It was embarrassing to your mother and me.”

  “We were surprised and disappointed,” Lee said. “That was not your normal behavior.”

  “I want to know one thing,” Charles said. “Why?”

  Dana had been silent, almost dreamy as she sat poised on the yellow sofa. Normally she would say nothing, just agree and agree for as long as it took for the conversation to die. But this was something else. Her father was making it into something else. “It’s so hypocritical.”

  “What’s hypocritical?”

  “You know.” When her father said nothing, just stared at her with his hard eyes, she continued. “He’s the man in the poker game, isn’t he? Grandpa didn’t like him, wouldn’t have anything to do with him—”

  “That’s enough,” Charles said.

  “—but it’s true.” She uncurled her legs and rose, all in one smooth motion. “He just wanted to be the first. And him of all people. Did you see the way he looked?” She giggled, remembering his watery eyes and red face, and off-balance Gable mustache.

  Charles said stiffly, “I have known Harold Evans for thirty years. He and my father, your grandfather, were close friends for most of those years. But whether we were, are, friends or not—” He caught himself. What was he doing, explaining—making explanations to this teenager? A teenage girl. His father had never explained, never apologized; things of this kind were understood without explanations, or ought to be. He looked at his daughter’s impassive face. “He’s an older man and therefore entitled to some respect. He hasn’t had the advantages you’ve had, though I suppose that wouldn’t make any difference to you—” He felt he was being dragged into something against his will.

  Dana smiled with as much sincerity as she could muster and replied, “I’m sorry. It just seemed to me—hypocritical.”

  “I don’t think you’ve had enough experience to know what is hypocritical, as you call it, and what isn’t.”

  She said again, “I’m sorry.”

  “It was very embarrassing for us,” her mother said.

  Dana said, “I had no idea, and I’m sorry.”

  Charles shook his head then and began to talk of good manners and politeness. She listened but her mind was elsewhere. Her father had been hurt by what she’d said. It was as if she’d attacked him, and that was a mystery to her. He’d made no secret of his contempt for the politician but when she’d brought it into the open he resisted, and it was more than simple resistance. He seemed to be saving, Insult Aces Evans and you insult me. Question his motives and you question mine. She’d been—outspoken, and girls of her age and position were never outspoken. She was nodding now, listening to her father. He was talking about hypocrisy, her favorite word; her least favorite quality. The one bad quality that could destroy any good one. He said, “Good manners have nothing to do with hypocrisy.” Finally, “Of course I will have to apologize myself to Mr. Evans.” She moved forward then, an expression of incredulity on her face. But she said nothing. She’d learned long ago that in her family it was always wise to let things go. Gone, they would slip from. memory Or slip from the foreground; they would never slip from memory She stood over her father, waiting for him to finish. When he did, she excused herself to go upstairs. She apologized again, though all of them knew now that the apology was not genuine. However, it was enough that it be tendered and the old order thereby respected. She hurried to her bedroom, grateful that her father had not lost his temper. The truth was, they had both been wrong. But he took it so personally. Aces Vans was not sinister, he was ludicrous. Why had no one laughed?

  Watching her go, Charles felt suddenly drained. He’d made no headway, she’d not yielded an inch. He supposed it was something he’d have to accept, a phase no doubt; she lived in a different world. His world and his father’s world were more or less identical, at least the values were identical, and he never dared challenge it; it had never occurred to him to challenge it, But Dana had a dark internal life that he didn’t comprehend. He felt defied but could not identify the source or cause of it. He turned to his wife, lowering his voice. Dana was himpetuous, it was something they would both have to watch, often she didn’t seem. to show respect...

  “I’m more than ever convinced—”

  “Oh, Lee,” he said.

  “—that another school, in another part of the country, is exactly what the girl needs.”

  He sighed. That was no solution at all. That would only aggravate the problem. Lee had first brought it up a year ago and he’d refused to discuss it. A prep school. There was no need for it. But she’d persisted and worn him down. Their daughter’s education was important to her; it was something she understood better than he did. Charles had finally ceased his objections though he’d never agreed in so many words. It was not something he could explain to his wife but he was afraid that if Dana went away she would never return, and she was all he had now. It was something he knew in his heart. He knew it by listening to her and watching her, and what he heard and saw and was fearful of was not anything that could be helped by another education. She was being pulled away and the solution was not to let go; it was to hang on.

  He said, “We can talk about it later. I’ve got a meeting at the office now.”

  CLIMBING INTO the front seat of his father’s car he nodded at Luth Roberts and they drove downtown in silence, Charles needed to think; it occurred to him after talking to Townsend that he had no real plan. He had to put Dana out of his mind and concentrate on the present moment. He asked Luth to drop him by the side entrance. It was unlikely that anyone would be in the lobby or the editorial department on the second floor, but he didn’t want to take chances; he didn’t want to meet anybody. He was tired of condolences; the funeral was over. Luth said he was glad to wait for him, but Charles said there was no need. He was half out of the car w
hen he paused.

  “Luth, did Elliott Townsend get in touch with you?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, it was something that Dad wanted to do.” Luth Roberts nodded. He was not looking at Charles- “Well,” Charles said. It was awkward; Charles thought that his father had shown a strange lapse of judgment. But he and Luther were close in their own way.

  “I was surprised,” Luth said.

  “You were with Dad a long time.”

  “I was still surprised.”

  Charles hesitated, irritated by the tone in the black man’s voice. What did he want? Charles said, “I’ll be glad to buy it back from you. Blue-book value—”

  “No, thank you,” Luth Roberts said.

  “As you wish,” Charles said stiffly.

  He looked directly at Charles for the first time. “It was written in the will?”

  “Of course,” Charles said. “You can go get it anytime.”

  Luth nodded. “I’ll get it tomorrow, if that’s all right.”

  “It’s in the garage,” Charles said.

  Luther looked at him with a flicker of a smile. “I know,” he said.

  “There’s one other thing.” Something about the man made Charles nervous. He was so still, his face immobile, his eyes as hard as onyx. “With Dad gone, we’d—the family would—be glad if you’d stay on. There’s work to be done at my place, and at Mitch’s and Tony’s.”

  “I’m sixty-five years old, Mr. Rising.”

  “Sixty-five,” Charles said, Of course he was sixty-five; Charles remembered having the Social Security forms filled out when he was transferred to the company payroll. “Well, even so—”

  “I’m going to retire now on my Social Security and what I’ve got saved. Take care of my mama, who’s old. My house is paid for.” He glanced at his hands, resting at ten and two on the steering wheel. “Time to relax.”

  “Wish I could,” Charles said. Then, “But whatever you say.”He leaned over and patted the other’s shoulder. Whatever his faults, Luther Roberts had been good to his father. And had been repaid, the black Cadillac bequeathed to him. What the hell was in his father’s mind? What would Luther Roberts do with a Cadillac sedan? That was the trouble, they all drove around in expensive automobiles ... And he’d probably want the license number that went with the car, license number 1893 that Amos Rising had for thirty years; 1893, the year he’d founded the I.

  “Does the license number come with the car?” Luth Roberts asked.

  “No,” Charles said.

  Luth looked at him a long second, his eyes burning. Then he smiled. “Too bad.”

  “But I think I can fix it.”

  “led be pleased if you’d do that.”

  “Be happy to.” Charles got out of the car and closed the door. He hadn’t wanted to do that, surrender the number. It was a number that belonged to the family Hitch and Sheila would be furious. But he was challenged by the look in. Luth Roberts’s eyes and felt obliged in other ways.

  Luth, sitting perfectly still in the driver’s seat, pressed the button that brought down the side window. “Your father and I talked about that car for many years.” He was staring straight ahead, talking into the windshield. “That car, and the one before it, and the one before that. I wasn’t sure—”

  Charles was distracted, irritated with himself. He said, “Well, it was something that Dad wanted to do.”

  “—that it would actually happen.”

  Charles nodded and walked away. Luth looked after him, his features softening a little now He said aloud, “I thought somebody would stop it. A colored man driving a black Cadillac sedan, license number eighteen ninety-three. The big black boat. Amos Rising’s big black boat. I’m damned if I didn’t think you’d find a way,” he said to Charles’s retreating back. But Charles did not hear him, he was well out of earshot. Charles Rising was always out of earshot, Luth thought. Out of mine, out of his father’s. A man who wanted to do the right thing, and often did, but a man out of earshot. He watched Charles open the heavy steel door and disappear into the pressroom.

  THE PRESSROOM was deserted and Charles paused to look at the great silent machine, his father’s pride, a six-unit Goss press sunk in concrete. It was capable of printing twenty thousand newspapers an hour. There were two color decks, used twice a week. He smiled. That had been a struggle. The old man believed that newspapers should be printed in black and white, like books; newspapers were for reading, not looking. A subscriber paid three cents for the newspaper and read it. He’d said, If you want to publish Life magazine, go to New York City. But Charles had prevailed, it was after all an advertising matter; the advertisers wanted color (or would, once Charles explained to them the advantages of ROP color display). The editorial content would not be affected, though the old man was impressed with Charles’s argument that with the color decks they could print the American flag in red, white and blue on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The flag was displayed next to the nameplate on page one. Charles stared at the press, so heavy and dangerous. The rolls of paper, almost as big as coupés, were slung under the press itself, feeding it from below the paper snaking into the machine at sixty miles an hour, the tension adjusted to a point barely short of fracture. Ink fed downward by means of a succession of rollers, The newsprint ran over lead castings distributed on the six units: page one, the editorial page, society, sports, classified, and all the pages in between. Razors chopped and trimmed the newspaper, sculpturing it for arrival on the conveyor belt.

  Charles stood looking at it, dwarfed by it, this visible symbol of his father’s authority. The printing press, surrounded by the sweet smell of ink and oil, and cream-colored newsprint blank as an infant’s memory. At tea-thirty and again at noon and at one-thirty the building trembled. You could feel it in your gut and through the soles of your shoes and hear it in the distance, like the thunder of an approaching storm, the sound and motion fusing until they were difficult to separate, what you heard and what you felt. The dozen men in the pressroom communicated by high sign, the foreman nodding and wigwagging and one of the men correcting the speed of the press or adjusting the oil level or the ink flow, A sheet ripped and there was a breakdown, the press roaring in anger. The Goss moved every bolt in the building and when it commenced its run, a low throb at first and bursting into a high whine and then a scream and at last a heavy rhythm, all of it was reminiscent of the humming of engines belowdecks on an ocean liner. And at least twice a week the old man would be there in person, watching the run in vest and shirtsleeves, standing near the conveyor belt to snatch the sixth paper from it, checking for typos and tomb-stones, pied type and bungled headlines, to admire the antique design, of page one, and to inspect the editorial page and glance at the masthead: The Dement Intelligencer

  AMOS RISING, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

  FOUNDED 1893

  “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” MARK 9: 24.

  The biblical quotation was the contribution of his wife, Joe, and it pleased him to have it there. He read the paper methodically, a heavy eraserless pencil in his hand. He believed the newspaper was alive, a living thing with soul and heart and mind. Charles looked around the big silent room and could see his father standing, legs apart on the throbbing floor, a ship’s captain at the wheel, his head buried in the I. He called himself editor. His title was Editor and Publisher but when he was obliged to identify himself he said “editor.” That was one thing that would change. Charles would call himself publisher. That was what he did, publish. Someone else could edit. People could be paid to edit, though he would leave the title vacant for a while, perhaps retire it altogether.

  He remembered the first time he took little Frank to watch the run. That was ten years ago, the middle of the war; the other war, not Frank’s war. Frank pushed the button to start the Goss and he recalled the boy’s wide smile as the noise gathered. His father had appeared then and the three of them watched the run, the old man snatching the first paper off the belt to give it
to Frank, then taking the sixth for himself. Charles had watched them both read the I, the boy unconsciously imitating the old man, head back, legs wide apart, holding the newspaper open in front of him as if the sheets were wings. It broke his heart to remember this but he never stepped into the pressroom without some fragment coming to stand. The old man had taken the boy by the hand and led him through all the departments of the newspaper, introducing him to every employee in the plant, explaining to him what they did—or letting them explain. Charles tagged along, astonished at the boy’s questions: Frank took it in by instinct, and nothing had to be explained twice. Thereafter he spent all available time in the back shop of the I and later, when he was older, working as an apprentice printer. Everyone liked him and on his eighteenth birthday his grandfather gave in a brass nameplate that read Frank F. Rising, assistant to the editor, and wrote a note: “You can have the desk that goes with the title any time you want.” Charles explained that Frank would go to college, wanted to go to college, and the old man replied that that would be all right. He had never been to college and Charles, Mitch and Tony had never been to college but it would probably do no positive harm, depending on the college. It would be a midwestern college, of course. Oh yes, Charles had said hastily, no question of that. But Frank enlisted in the Marine Corps in June of 1951 and was dead before the end of the year. Charles and Lee had tried to stop him; it made no sense. But the boy was stubborn and there was no string Charles could pull to keep him out of Korea. Identification was made by fingerprints; there wasn’t anything else. Charles missed his son more than he could say. From that first tour of the building he had seen himself as a link between his father and his son. He knew exactly what he wanted: to consolidate the financial strength of the paper and when he was sixty-five to hand it, intact, to the boy. Charles knew himself well enough to know that he was not a printer or an editor. He was a publisher and counting-house man, a creative accountant and modern businessman who understood the town and where, it was going, and knew that the I could be the leading edge. Had Frank lived, the line would have been continuous; but when he was killed, Charles told his father bluntly, Give me control. Let me pick the successor. Divide the money so there’s no ill feeling there, but give me passing-on rights. So the three of them, he and his father and Elliott Townsend, had drawn the will. And his father had insisted on the committee. And insisted that Mitch be the family representative. Grotesque, he thought; simply grotesque.