“Doesn't sound so crazy to me. He must have been a hell of a nice guy."
“I'm not so sure of that. The old-timers said nice things about him, but their tone of voice was funny. The house he so graciously let Bobby live in for working his ass off on the farm is a rundown, unpainted shack. Bobby says that after my aunt died Uncle Pete became something of a Romeo. Seems he tried to bed every available woman in Dot—even some that were married. Bobby called him ‘pussy whipped', whatever that means."
They both laughed at the concept of a 75 year old Romeo.
“It seems that for the last couple of years he had something going with a young woman Bobby knows only as Janine. He thinks she's from Charlotte. He says she spent many nights at the house."
“What happened to her?"
“Bobby doesn't know. He said she called an ambulance the night Uncle Pete had his stroke and then just disappeared. I'm guessing it is Janine's clothes you are wearing."
“She had good taste."
“And big boobs."
* * * *
After eating a couple of sandwiches for lunch, Tim went to the grocery store and purchased the Sunday edition of the Charlotte Observer from a rack in front of the store. He returned to the farm and settled down on the front porch to read. Sandra joined him and continued her reading of Silas Marner.
This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year after he came to Raveloe. The livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow growth of sameness in the brownish web, his muscles moving with such even repetition that their pause seemed almost as much a constraint as the holding of his breath. But at night came his revelry: at night he closed his shutters, and made fast his doors and drew forth his gold. Long ago the heap of coins had become too large for the iron pot to hold them, and he made for them two thick leather bags, which wasted no room in their resting place, but lent themselves flexibly to every corner. How the guineas shone as they came pouring out of the dark leather mouths! The silver bore no large portion in amount to the gold, because the long pieces of linen which formed his chief work were always partly paid for in gold, and out of the silver he supplied his own bodily wants, choosing always the shillings and sixpences to spend in this way. He loved the guineas best, but he would not change the silver—the crowns and half-crowns that were his own earnings, begotten by his labour; he loved them all. He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half-earned by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children—thought of the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years, through all his life, which spread far away before him, and the end quite hidden by countless days of weaving.
She rested the book in her lap. The betrayal of his best friend drove Silas Marner from his hometown. She left her hometown, at least partly due to the betrayal of her father. Marner found a new home and a way to make money. She saw herself bathing her hands in piles of hundred-dollar bills. She must find a new home and a way to accumulate money. Once she was a successful prostitute. She was good at finding and rolling drunks. She could do it again. But the risks ... Tim was not admitting it, but he would soon have money—lots of it. She would find a way to make it her own. He liked her body. She knew he did. His uncle was pussy whipped according to Bobby Elliott. Like uncle, like nephew. She smiled faintly and returned to the book. What else could she learn from Silas Marner?
Chapter Four
Tim again found that Sandra had gotten up on Monday morning before him. She was in the library reading Silas Marner, and seemed unaware of his presence as he leaned against the doorway. The fuzzy red robe she wore gaped open at the top and he gazed at her fully exposed right breast. The bruises seem to be gone this morning, he observed. She's getting better. Soon it will be time for her to go her own way, but is that what I want?
“Like what you see?"
He felt himself blush. He approached her and she made no effort to cover herself.
“I'm sorry, Sandy. Your breasts fascinate me. They are so beautiful."
“Be careful of what you say,” she said as she pulled the robe further apart, allowing him a view of both breasts. “I wound up staying four years with the last man who said that to me."
He touched her left nipple with his forefinger and watched it spring erect.
She smiled, looking down at the nipple. “It likes you,” she said. She placed her hand on his crotch. “I see you like it too."
He allowed her hand to linger and moved his finger to the other nipple. “The bruises seem to be gone this morning."
She nodded. “Sadly, so is the swelling."
“You don't need the swelling.” He sucked the nipple between his lips. She moaned. He moved away.
“I wish..."
“What do you wish, Tim Dollar? Your wish is my command."
“I wish things were different."
“That I weren't such a slut?"
“That I weren't so damned horny."
“I can take care of that for you anytime you like."
“It isn't right, Sandy. Sex without love is ... is just an animalistic act."
“Animals seem to enjoy it though."
He smiled, shook his head, and pointed to the book. “For someone who doesn't like classics, you certainly seem fascinated by that one. I'll let you get back to it. Sorry I disturbed you."
A nod was Sandra's only reply.
Dunstan knocked still more loudly, and, without pausing for a reply, pushed his fingers through the latch-hole, intending to shake the door and pull the latch-string up and down, not doubting that the door was fastened. But, to his surprise, at this double motion the door opened, and he found himself in front of a bright fire which lit up every corner of the cottage—the bed, the loom, the three chairs, and the table—and showed him that Marner was not there.
Nothing at that moment could be more inviting to Dunstan than the bright fire on the brick hearth: he walked in and seated himself by it at once. There was something in front of the fire too, that would have been inviting to a hungry man, if it had been in a different stage of cooking. It was a small bit of pork suspended from the kettle-hanger by a string passed through a large door-key, in a way known to primitive housekeepers unpossessed of jacks. But the pork had been hung at the fartherest extremity of the hanger, apparently to prevent the roasting from proceeding too rapidly during the owner's absence. The old staring simpleton had hot meat for his supper, then? thought Dunstan. People had always said he lived on mouldy bread on purpose to check his appetite. But where could he be at this time, and on such an evening, leaving his supper in this stage of preparation, and his door unfastened? Dunstan's own recent difficulty in making his way suggested to him that the weaver had perhaps gone outside his cottage to fetch in fuel, or for some such brief purpose, and had slipped into the Stone-pit. That was an interesting idea to Dunstan, carrying consequences of entire novelty. If the weaver was dead, who had a right to his money? Who would know that anybody had come to take it away? He went no farther into the subtleties of evidence: the pressing question, ‘Where is the money?’ now took such entire possession of him as to make him quite forget that the weaver's death was not a certainty. A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to make the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic. And Dunstan's mind was as dull as the mind of a possible felon usually is. There were only three hiding-places where he had ever heard of cottagers’ hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. Marner's cottage had no thatch; and Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid by the stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he did so, his eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, distinct in the fire-light, were discernable under the sprinkling of sand. But not everywher
e; for there was one spot, and one only, which was quite covered with sand, and sand showing the marks of fingers, which had apparently been careful to spread it over a given space. It was near the treddles of the loom. In an instant Dunstan darted to that spot, swept away the sand with his whip, and, inserting the thin end of the hook between the bricks, found that they were loose. In haste he lifted up two bricks, and saw what he had no doubt was the object of his search. For what could there be but money in those two leathern bags?
Late on Sunday afternoon Bobby had dropped by and agreed to chauffeur Sandra to Charlotte where she planned to have her “lost” driver's license replaced. Reluctantly Tim acknowledged the $5,000 hidden in his Mustang, and gave her $500 to purchase clothes and the mysterious things women always seemed to need.
Tim arrived at Silas Coan's office promptly at 10:00 a.m. but the attorney did not make his appearance for another ten minutes. Tim thought Coan looked like a Norman Rockwell drawing of Santa Claus without the red suit and hat. He was plump, short, and bald on the top but there was a burst of bushy snow-white hair on the sides. Although a little alarmed by his age, Tim instantly liked, and trusted Silas.
“Mrs. White tells me I should have given you more details in my letter,” Coan said before sipping a cup of steaming coffee provided to both men by the efficient Victoria White. “Truth is, your uncle was a rich man. We have much to discuss."
Tim sat literally opened mouthed as the lawyer ticked off the assets in his inheritance. There was the hardware store, of course, and the farm. To Tim's amazement the farm consisted of 552,000 acres and a dozen tenant houses, all but one presently unoccupied. Tim now owned half the buildings in the town of Dot, from which he would collect monthly rent. There were cash assets of more than one million dollars as well as stocks and bonds, which, at last valuation, were worth nearly twenty five million. Finally, Tim learned there were 45 rental houses in Charlotte that Uncle Harlow passed on to him.
“I'm stunned,” Tim at last said. “I had no idea Uncle Pete was wealthy. I vaguely remember my parents talking about Uncle Pete, but I certainly don't remember them saying anything about us having a rich relative. For some reason I connect in my memory discussions of Uncle Pete and arguments."
“How long ago was that, Tim?"
“Twenty five or thirty years ago. My folks have been dead for twenty years now, killed in an automobile accident."
“Sorry to hear that son. Your uncle wasn't rich, back then. He was just a hardworking tobacco farmer. He inherited 25 acres when only twenty years old and built it up from there. When I finished law school and opened my practice in Dot, Pete and I became good friends. We both had dreams of making it big. In a way, I succeeded by riding his coattails. The money started pouring in when the two of us opened a tobacco auction warehouse in Dot. That's where the Dot Discount House is now. It didn't hurt any that he let me handle his investments for him."
“But Mr. Coan, why would he leave this fortune to me? I understand I am the last surviving member of the family, but he didn't even know me. Why didn't he leave it to friends like you or to charity?"
“Son, if you want to sign it all over to me, I'll take it,” Silas grinned as he reached for his coffee cup.
“I don't mean to sound ungrateful,” Tim laughed. “It's just hard to take it all in."
“Actually it's a good question, Tim—a question your uncle made me swear I would never tell anyone, but he changed his mind on his deathbed. The last thing he said to me the night of his stroke was to tell Timothy the truth."
Tim wasn't sure he wanted to hear the truth, but the lawyer continued. “The family relationship is on your father's side. Your mother and father moved to Dot when we built the tobacco warehouse. Your dad was going to be the warehouse manager for us. As you know, your mom was a handsome lady. Pete always was a ladies man. They had an affair. The man who raised you swore he would kill Pete if he ever tried to have anything to do with either your mother or you again. He even changed his name to Dollar, your grandmother's maiden name. You see son, Pete Harlow was your biological father."
“And my dad—the man I thought was my dad—was Pete's brother?"
Silas Coan nodded, picked up the two coffee cups and went to his secretary's office for refills, giving Tim a few minutes alone to cope with this bombshell.
“You okay son?” the lawyer asked on his return.
“No. It's going to take time for all of this to sink in. I can't believe that my saintly mother, who drug me to the Baptist Church every Wednesday night and twice on Sundays, would..."
“I know. It's always hard for us to realize our idols have feet of clay."
After an uncomfortable period of silence, Silas Coan proceeded. “We have a long day ahead of us, Tim. You need to go over the will carefully. There are documents to sign, bank accounts to change, and one hell of a check to write for inheritance taxes. If you're up to it, I see no need to drag it out any longer than necessary."
Tim nodded his agreement.
“Before you get into the legal necessities, I want to give you two pieces of advice. What you do with it is your business."
“Okay."
“The word is you've been telling people you are going to sell the farm and store and move on. Of course, at the time you didn't realize the value or the extent of the estate. I urge you to make Dot your home. With just a little management, you won't have to work another day in your life, and the town needs you."
“The idea of never having to work again may excite me when all of this sinks in,” Tim responded. “But if a man doesn't have work to do, where is the challenge, the reason to get out of bed in the morning?"
Silas smiled broadly. “You're Pete's son all right. He never slowed down. Never even stopped to enjoy his money until after his wife died. I asked him one time how much money he needed to be satisfied. He said he heard Jerry Lewis once answer a similar question by saying, ‘Just a little bit more.’ You can take your inheritance and double it—maybe triple it. Who knows?"
“Or lose it all. Mr. Coan, I know nothing about any of this—farming, stocks and bonds, retailing, rentals—nothing."
“Neither did Pete when he started out. He learned by the seat of his britches. I always handled his business details, but he was the idea man."
“If I decide to stay, will you handle the business details for me?"
“No."
“No?"
Silas smiled. “Son, I'm nearly eighty years old. I figure I have another thirty good years left I and plan to spend them enjoying life with my bride."
Tim laughed, and then realized that perhaps he shouldn't have.
“You don't think I'll live to 110?"
“I hope you do, sir."
“What line of work are you in, Tim?"
“I am ... I was a school teacher. It had gotten to be largely a baby-sitting job. I'd been thinking about getting out of that racket for a long time. When I received your letter I decided the time had come."
“College professor?"
“No, high school. I taught basic business courses like typing and bookkeeping."
“Son, you're a natural. Get you one of those computer things to track your assets and plan your projects. Work when you feel like it and play when the mood strikes."
“It does sound tempting, but I'd be more inclined to seriously consider your advice if I knew I could count on you to guide me."
“I'll be around for a while to get you started and answer your questions, and my son might be of some help to you."
“Your son?"
“Yes.” Silas smiled and his eyes seemed to transport him to another time and place. “Yes,” he repeated. “My one and only baby boy is finally coming home. Of course, at fifty years of age, he isn't a baby any more. After law school, he went to work for Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem. Good job. Good pay. You know what has happened to the tobacco industry. The pressure is getting to him. He has agreed to come home and take over my practice."
&nb
sp; “I will certainly need his help.” Tim paused, considering the words that just slipped out of his mouth. Had he just agreed to stay in Dot? “You said there were two pieces of advice you wanted to give me?"
“Yes, and this one's a bit of a shocker too. Your uncle, father, whatever, was appreciated by folks around here, but he was feared and hated too. In some respects he was a fair man, but always paid for goods and services at rock bottom prices. If somebody needed financial help, Pete gave it to him or her, but often at a great price. It became especially bad after your aunt was bedridden. He sometimes required sex in payment for a loan. Many a man in this community has seen his wife ride off with Pete Harlow, knowing what was going to happen. Their personal guilt and resentment carries over to you. These people need the money flow your fortune can bring to the community, but they're hoping you will not mimic your uncle's harsh repayment requirements."
“This man I've been calling my uncle, this Pete Harlow, was one royal son-of-a-bitch."
“Yes. However, he was a hell of a guy in some respects. You couldn't ever tell about Pete. When the community church burned, Pete paid to rebuild it and when old Doc Bronson dropped dead, Pete went out and found Dr. Honneycutt so the town wouldn't be without medical help. When Lizzie Lane's husband died in a tractor accident, Pete gave her a job at the hardware store. Nobody ever heard of a woman working in a hardware store at that time. He sent her two kids to college, too."
“I'm more confused than ever about my so called uncle, but if I decide to stay here, the people will just have to accept that I'm Tim Dollar, not Pete Harlow."
“That's my point. Folks are hoping you're not Pete Harlow, but they hope you have Pete's good traits. You're going to have to show them who, and what, Tim Dollar is."
* * * *
Sandra and Bobby got a late start to Charlotte. Sandra preferred to ride in the Cavalier, rather than Bobby's pickup. Bobby refused to drive the Cavalier until he carefully checked it out and changed the oil. Then Sandra wanted to give the red beauty a bath and vacuum out the musty smells from the interior. During the two hours the preparation of the automobile required, a mutual respect unexpectedly was born.
Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors Page 5