Horrible Harvest

Allison Weaver Duffy dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Well, I hate you for that, Mr. Tennyson. I surely do. I thought I was cried out. Spilled every tear I had for my beloved Felix, is what I thought. Then you come along with a story like that.”

We was set on a wooden bench in the train station. A crowd of just a few travelers milled about. To them, they probably thought we was father and daughter saying our goodbyes before one of us was to hop a train to who-the-shit-cares.

“This is where I remind you that you demanded I tell it.”

“I am guilty of curiosity. I am that. Damn me for it, is what I say, but you don’t understand, you was myth to me ‘til I seen you in the diner. I thought Felix was making you up. I wanted to know if everything he said was true.”

“I’m sure he was making it up. I didn’t do near half the things he thought I done. That’s how history gets made. Facts get so muddled by lies to make for a better story, no one knows what did or didn’t happen. Folks just retell what entertained them most. Who we are as a people, as a species, as a goddamn country, it’s just bullshit on top of horseshit. The truth ain’t but one or two niblets of corn mixed in there somewheres.”

“Well thanks for that image,” she chuckled. “It weren’t just Felix. Ms. Virginia and Ms. Penelope had stories, too.”

Upon hearing Penolope’s name, I give pause. I turnt to her and stared a good while before saying, “Penelope? You knew Penelope?”

“Of course I did. How could I not?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she and Felix were sweethearts. They were ‘til the day she died. She was a another mother to me, she was.”

“Felix and Penelope – They were – They married?”

“Goodness no. Miss Penelope didn’t have no desire to marry. She said the most evil thing on this planet was husbands, and she didn’t have no desire to spend romance on one.”

I laughed.

“That’s funny?”

“Only because I know how Penelope earned her money, and I’m guessing you don’t.”

“I do. She was a whore. Damn good one, from what I understand. That’s how she come to believe husbands are evil. She bedded near every one of them in Charleston.”

“And Felix was okay with her profession?”

“Well, she’d quit by the time the war come along. She worked nursing soldiers. Had what they call an aptitude for it. Joined a hospital after the war. Done that ‘til she caught some illness of some sort from a poor soul she was tending to. She was gone quick from it. Three weeks from first cough to last breath. Died with Felix laying next to her, holding her hand.”

I choked back a tear.

Allison noticed and seemed a tad surprised by my reaction. “You ain’t all sandpaper and poison, are you, Mr. Tennyson? There’s some tenderness in you.”

“I’ve tried to rid myself of it, I have, but it’s stuck to me like shit on a shoe.”

“Well, I don’t blame you in this case. Ms. Penelope was a grand lady.”

“That she was.”

“Don’t suppose you have a story about her you’d care to share. A happy story.”

“I have a story. It’s absent the bullshit and horseshit. It’s all niblet. I can’t give you nothing else. I’m willing to tell it, but I can’t take responsibility how you’ll take it. Happy, sad, aggravating, enlightening, it ain’t for me to say. That’s up to you. I’ll tell it if we can agree on that.”

She give my proposal some thought and then set back. “Tell away, Mr. Tennyson. Tell away.”