“Bethel,” she said, “I wanted to surprise you with this, but I can’t keep it from you until your attorney calls this afternoon.”
“Excuse me,” I said. I sat up in the bed, carefully lifting her with me. “How do you know who my lawyer is?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I didn’t know who your lawyer was, until a kind old man in Kingston, Tennessee, told me who he was.”
“What kind man?” I asked. But I already knew the answer.
“Dr. Salters,” she said. She kissed and hugged me. “He says your daughter wants to know who her father is now.”
38
“I’VE NEVER SEEN YOU look any happier in all the years I’ve known you,” Vernon said as we were sitting in his kitchen drinking beer. It was Friday afternoon. Glory was still back at my place relaxing and watching TV. It felt good to know someone was at home, someone who truly cared about me.
“You know where you are right now, don’t ya?” Vernon asked playfully. He was smiling brightly, clearly taking joy in witnessing my improved physical health and what he said was my readily apparent positive aura.
“Tell me,” I said. “Where am I?”
“The Wet Spot,” he answered, followed by a deep and hearty laugh.
We both laughed hysterically for two minutes. Though I knew what he meant by that, I allowed him to explain it in his own way.
“You’re in the best part of any relationship. Not only are you with someone you really, truly dig, but you have a great sexual partner to boot. I don’t have to even ask about it, because I know men all too well, and you even better. The challenge, old man, is to remain in the Wet Spot. You two have to commit to never reaching into the linen closet for a towel before you have sex. That’s what me and my baby promise each other to never do. We just love it in the Wet Spot. Once that spot dries up or disappears, so does the passion. Don’t let it happen to you, old man.”
“I’ve never been married,” I said, “so I wouldn’t know anything about laying a towel underneath my partner before intercourse.”
“Good. Keep it that way. Forsake the towel and keep it real.”
But I wasn’t at Vernon’s place to talk about wet spots. He stood, opened the fridge, and removed two more bottles of beer.
“Bethel,” he said, more as a statement than a form of address. “Since your girl is calling you by your first name now, so am I.” He handed me one of the beers and offered a paternal smile. “I always thought it was foolish of you to forsake your first name. So, Bethel, tell me all about your daughter. Tell me about Miranda.”
I told him all about my daughter and also about Glory contacting Doc Salters in Tennessee. After I finished, Vernon smiled and nodded his approval.
“I’m proud of you, old man,” he said. “I can remember a not-too-distant time ago when you would have killed anyone—and I mean anyone—who would have ever meddled in your affairs. At any rate, it is a very interesting story. Where is the little girl now?”
“She’s still in Kingston, the same town where I met her mother. Doc Salters and his wife adopted her. Her name is Miranda Salters. But my lawyer says we can easily change her last name to Smith, and that with a little legal maneuvering I can assume custody of her. All I have to do is have my DNA tested for a match. Once confirmed, just like that, and I’ll have her.”
“I see a look of doubt on your face,” Vernon said. And he was right. “Talk to me. What’s your reservation?”
I shook my head and sighed. I knew I was about to lay some excuses on Vernon that wouldn’t set well with him. “It’s a big responsibility, Vernon. I mean, it’s a huge one.”
“Hell yes, it is!” he said, slapping the table top. “That’s what parenting and fatherhood are all about. But you’re up for it, old man. You have renewed strength now, from the love given to you by your new woman. I see nothing but good things here. But tell me this: Why are they going to return the child to you so easily? I don’t get that.”
This was the part that both saddened and worried me: “The doctor’s wife is in bad health. Really bad. She’s seventy-three. She maybe has a few months to live after suffering a rather severe heart attack. And lovely old Doc Salters . . . Well, he’s seventy-five now. I talked to him just two hours ago. He says as much as he loves the girl, he thinks it’s time for me to claim full responsibility and, as he says, to finish what I started. He says that though he always loved her as his own child, he prepared himself for the day when he knew I would return for her.”
Vernon nodded. “Sounds reasonable to me. Okay, this all sets up nicely for both you and the little girl. Did you get a picture of her? I mean, a different one besides the one you’ve kept in your wallet for all these years?”
“Nope. I told the doctor I wanted to wait until I got there and met up with her in person. To me that will somehow make it more . . . special.”
“But also more difficult,” Vernon noted. “You’re scared of how she’ll react to you, which is perfectly understandable. But I take it they never hid the fact from her that she was adopted?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Okay. Well, I guess this changes some things. Things that I guess I need to know about, being how it is that you are in my employ. You’re either here because you want time off, or because you’re leaving Orlando. Which is it, my friend? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going up there at some point,” I said. “I’m going to try and talk to her and see if I’m someone she wants to spend the rest of her childhood with. But I’m not going until Mrs. Salters passes. I have to show some respect there.”
“Oh, but you have to take her,” Vernon said firmly. “It is your moral obligation. Her adoptive mother is dying, and seventy-five is too old for a man to raise a young lady by himself. You’re it, old man. You have to make it work. You can’t subject little Miranda to the crapshoot it would be if they found other parents for her.”
“No,” I said. “She’s ten years old right now, old enough to decide the issue for herself. If she gets a creepy feeling about me, she can always find other, loving parents that—”
“Whoa! Stop it with this bullshit,” Vernon commanded. “You’re either going up there or you’re not. Don’t do that to that little girl. She’s your blood, Bethel. Ain’t no denying that.”
“I’m going to do right by her,” I said. “I really am. Whatever happens, she’ll be taken care of for as long as I live, and afterward. But I have to make it her decision. I just can’t go up there and order her to come live with me. If, after spending a little time together, she decides she wants me to be her father, and I mean her father for real, then I’ll work fast and hard to make it happen. If she wants me back, she gets to pick where she wants to live. I imagine she probably has a lot of friends in that lovely, friendly little town.”
Vernon nodded. He seemed a little more amenable to my plan. “Okay, old man. But tell me this: If you move to Tennessee, will you open a branch of our computer business up there for me? The Knoxville area could be a good market for us.”
I shook my head. I’d decided my days as a computer technician were coming to an end. I didn’t know how to break it to him.
“I have something else in mind,” I said. “Something you can help with, and I’ll pay you for your expertise.”
“Okay, Bethel. I don’t like losing you. But you know I’ll help with anything. What’s your proposition?”
…
I was sitting in my car as it idled in Sidebottom’s driveway. I honked the horn and waited for him to pop out. A minute later he was walking down the long driveway to meet me, dressed like a damned pimp. I knew he was about to embark on another night of sarging unsuspecting female targets at a local nightclub or bar.
“Tonight’s a big night for me, mi amigo,” he said. We shook hands and he kept talking. “Tonight I become the guru. I’m picking up five hundred bucks a head, five guys total, who will learn from me the art of the pickup.”
“Wally, that’s gre
at,” I said. “But I really don’t want to know about it. I thought you were committed to making your money with Vernon’s company.”
Wally shook his head. He was wearing a wide brimmed white hat of some sort that was adorned with feathers. It made him look like a goddamned duck. And his fingernails were painted hot pink. On his chin he was now sporting a soul patch. His shoes had to be seen to be believed. I really don’t even want to think about them now. He was also wearing eye makeup, for crying out loud.
“I’m making twenty-five hundred dollars tonight,” he said. “I’m done with computers. So it looks like Buckwheat will be without both of us.”
“I swear to God, if you call him Buckwheat one more time, I’m going to—”
He held up his hands and said, “Sorry, okay?” I swear, with that hat he was wearing, I could almost hear him quack. “Look, Smith, I’m glad you came. I have a proposition for you. And you’ll make more money from me than you’ll ever get from Buck—um, Vernon. You’re the best web design guy I know. Well, Vernon’s better, but he turned me down. You see, I need a website for my new business venture. I need—”
“Stop it,” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. “I’m not helping you with any of your goddamned sarging, or whatever you call it. I just don’t believe in that shit. I’m not going to be neutral about this anymore. I am going to openly denounce every trick you play on women to get them into bed.”
“Huh?” Wally looked worried. I really wasn’t going to openly say or do anything about his pickup practices. If women were that damn dumb to let it happen to them, whose job was it to protect them from their own gullibility? But I sure as hell didn’t mind scaring him a bit.
“Wally, about that book—the one that’s bound and gilded like a real Bible. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to the bookstore and order a thousand goddamned copies of it, and then I’m going to distribute it to every lame-brained hussy on Dusty Pond. Maybe it’ll save them an unwanted pregnancy or a morally depraved threesome.”
“You’re bluffing,” he said, self-assured now. He was right—I was bluffing. But I came with a pure heart.
I went to the back of my car and unlocked the trunk. “Wally, please come here.”
His heels clicked and clacked, and the feathers on his stupid pimp hat floated right behind him.
“You going to throw me in there?” he said.
I opened the trunk and pointed inside. “Look.”
“One of your guitars?” he asked. He was close.
“No,” I said as I reached for the black guitar case. I lifted it out and handed it to him. “Inside is a brand new Taylor Big Baby acoustic guitar. It plays like a dream. Inside the case are extra strings, along with some tools and cleaning supplies for proper maintenance. What you do with this instrument is up to you. Just know what my guitar did for me.”
“What was that?” Wally asked.
“It gave purpose and meaning to my life. It kept me from killing myself.”
…
On the road back home, my cell phone buzzed. I didn’t recognize the number but I answered the call anyway.
“Hello,” said a man’s voice. “Am I speaking with Mr. Bethel Smith?”
“You are,” I answered. “What can I do for you?”
“My name is Johnny Johnson. I’m an attorney, Mr. Smith. I would like to come to your house to meet with you. It is in regard to the estate of the late Dr. Samantha Fleming.”
“Sorry, sir, but I’m not family.”
“No, you may not be, Mr. Smith. But, nonetheless, you have inherited from her estate. I wish to meet with you immediately.”
“Inherited what?” I asked. This was getting interesting.
“Mr. Smith, I’d really rather wait until—”
“What did I inherit, kind sir? I must know before you come over. I really hate surprises. I really do.”
“Okay, so be it. Mr. Smith, Samantha Fleming’s life insurance policy has you named as a beneficiary. Because of her untimely passing you are to collect two million dollars.”
39
EIGHT MONTHS PASSED. It was New Year’s Day.
It was a pleasant, warm, and sunny day in Orlando. Though we were battling hangovers following a night of celebrating with our friends, Glory and I were hard at work relocating boxes and furniture from her apartment to my place. We wanted to finish up by four so we’d have time to get dressed and ready for a night with Wally Sidebottom. While working up a good sweat hauling all of this stuff, I fondly reflected on the events of the past several months.
Glory and I had spent every night together since we’d first made love. And no, it wasn’t out of economic necessity that we were moving in together. It wasn’t a case of: “Well, we spend every night together anyway, so we might as well quit paying two rents and just shack up together.” Money and convenience weren’t the issues—we’d made sure of that. The decision was based solely on our desire to be with one another every day, for the rest of our lives.
We still had a passionate love life. That was the most important thing to me. We reminded each other every day to never take one another for granted. A relationship like the one we were trying to build requires trust, mutual respect, and true love. And, before asking her to move in with me, I made sure she knew that I was deeply in love with her.
She then followed my declaration with one of her own: “My dear Bethel, I knew I would fall in love with you the day we met. I’ll never forget the way you looked at me. And yes, I knew that you looked at me all over, and not just in my eyes. But you looked at me with respect. You looked at me with admiration, just as a lover of art would view a painting. It was that day when we first got lost in each other’s eyes that I knew my life had forever changed. It was so scary to feel it, but at that point a part of me knew that our fates would forever be tied together. As you well know, that is not something that can be easily explained. And now I do love you, Bethel Smith. I’ve loved you since the morning you first made love to me. I was yours from that moment on.”
I made damned sure that Glory knew she would forever be my highest priority in life. Even as my days on the job with Vernon’s company had stretched to twelve-hour shifts, when I’d get home, before I went to the bathroom or grabbed a beer from the fridge, I would pick up one of my guitars and play for Glory. In fact, I was now even singing, too. Glory was an accomplished vocalist, and had been since early childhood. She’d begun giving me voice lessons six months ago. She was particularly fond of my rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line.” And I just loved singing it to her. The way it made her smile, the way she believed the lyrics when they came from my lips—that meant the world to me. I had always admired Johnny and his wife June for their dedication to one another—an undying love if there ever was one. I prayed to the good Lord up above that Glory and I could have a love just like that. I would never ask more from Him than that. . . .
Of the two million dollars I had inherited from Samantha Fleming, I directed one-eighth of it to charities and organizations aligned with the needs of homeless children and children with a single parent. My thought in making those donations was that I didn’t want any kid without a father or a mother to end up going through what I had. No, money can’t solve everything, but it often makes for a damn good start in the right direction. To put my money where my mouth was, I had also begun volunteering as a Big Brother with the local chapter in Central Florida. I’d mostly worked on weekends with black and Hispanic children, often bringing Glory to tag along. It was turning out to be quite a rewarding experience, especially since I had begun taking Spanish lessons, which enabled me to communicate more effectively with the Latino children.
I directed $250,000 to the Lupus Research Foundation. I’d once dated a lady afflicted by lupus. Though I hadn’t seen her in almost ten years, I made the donation in her name. I had admired that adorable woman for being one of the gutsiest souls I’d ever known. In my presence she had experienced a couple of lupus at
tacks that had scared me more than anything I’d ever witnessed. She was a tough, courageous, and brave lady. Though our relationship was rather short-lived, I’d never forgotten her. I’d always felt like she was a soul mate of sorts, a kindred spirit because I had manic depression (though you really can’t compare the two conditions—I’ll take manic depression over lupus any day). I prayed she was still out there, alive and kicking, breaking the hearts of other men just as she had broken mine.
I then chose to allot a few hundred grand toward making someone’s dreams come true. I dedicated myself to building a business for the woman I had fallen deeply in love with. It wasn’t to be a down payment on future love to be received; the money was simply my way of expressing my gratefulness to Glory for having saved my life, as well as my soul. I hadn’t worked out all the details just yet. When I finally got it together, I wanted it to be a surprise.
I redirected about a million dollars back to Samantha’s son, even though he and the attorney representing his trust felt they were in financially good shape with what they already had. I promised Devin that if he ever needed a mentor or just a friend, my door would be open to him. He knew that I’d also lost my mother to suicide. It wasn’t the best way to form a bond, but he took me up on my offer and we talked on the phone almost every day. He also occasionally accompanied me and Glory on the Big Brother weekends.
And speaking of Dr. Samantha Fleming’s son . . .
On an early October Sunday morning, Devin called to inform me that he’d found my manuscript in his mother’s closet the night before. He said that though many of the pages were ruffled and partially ripped, it was mostly intact. Devin gave the manuscript to me a week later after I picked him up for one of our Big Brother outings.
That night, when I opened the black notebook the manuscript was bound in, I was completely blown away by what I saw on those tattered and torn pages. Samantha had marked up the manuscript extensively with helpful suggestions regarding the storyline, the plot, the development of the characters, and my overall style of writing (Glory provided a ton of help as well during the process). And on the final page of the edited manuscript was a short note. It read:
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