Horrible Harvest

We tore ass out of Louisiana with the Klan on our trail. I’d done what Bobby asked. I cranked up the noise to take down their gathering, and more than a few of ‘em went crispy and dead. They was none too happy, and they had hangings on their mind.

A week later we found ourselves in Jackson, Mississippi. Bobby paid a farmer more money than necessary to pack up and leave out on a trip to British Columbia. They’d met in a tavern, and the old man mentioned he’d wanted to get one last grand hunting trip in ‘fore he departed onto the great beyond. A fancy trip, the kind rich folks take. He wanted to hunt down a great big ol’ brown bear. A mean sumbitch. It wasn’t hunting, the old man said, if you weren’t but a shot from getting et. He’d been told he got the cancer, and he didn’t have more than a year left.

Bobby give him a proposal. He’d finance the old man’s trip for the use of his property while he was gone. From the time they first started chatting to the time they shook hands on the deal, less than two hours had passed. Six hours later, the farmer was on a train to St. Louis to find a long-forgotten hunting buddy who he’d hoped would accompany him to the Canadian Rockies. Years later, I fount out the old man did get et by that bear. Story is he didn’t even take his shot. He just stood there, inviting the bear to come get his supper.

Gladys tended to her husband’s wounds with Virginia’s help. The woman was deep in love with my brother by half. That was plain to see. I wondered if he’d told her everything he’d done in his life. He never had any kind of affection for negroes, nor anyone that didn’t bake beet red under the naked sun. He had high on hatred for most everybody, to tell the truth, but blacks in particular got him riled and frothing with anger.

I kept my distance as she give him aid. I didn’t never cross the doorway to his room. Douglas was a source of sour memories for me. If the fella I met in the French Quarter was him for true, he’d changed, by a whole hell of a lot, but the boy he had been under Daddy’s care – The man-child he’d been under service to Mr. Stockton – He’d been something else altogether when I know’d him. I’d hated him so deep and for so long I didn’t know how to be around him.

A day come when Gladys caught me hanging near the door. She’d seen my thoughts. Somehow, someway, she knew what was holding me back. Virginia was fast asleep on the floor next to Douglas’s bed. It struck me, she’d found the family from Charleston she’d been wanting to get back to. They didn’t have no relation to her, but they had open hearts. More than I had. A hair more than what Felix had. She could feel it, and I tell you true, I was relieved to see it. I wanted that for her, and for me. It near killed me caring for somebody that much, and I wanted to be rid of her. You need mean to do my job – A kind of mean that’s virus-like. It gets passed onto everyone around you. I had fear that Virginia would collect enough of it, she’d never get cured of it.

Without turning to me, Gladys said, “He talks of you more than anyone, love.”

I didn’t respond.

“He thinks the world of you. Says you’re something special – That you got something special – Something this world needs to right itself.”

“I don’t.”

She chuckled. “That’s what they all say.”

“They who?”

“Folks who got something special the world needs. It’s a scary thing having that kind of charge weighing on you.”

“Nothing weighs on me.”

She chuckled harder. “Everything weighs on you. Time weighs on you. The past weighs on you – The future weighs on you. The only thing that don’t concern you is the here and now because you can’t catch up to it – ‘Cause your thoughts got you coming and going. Your mind don’t slow down enough to worry about were you are because you’re running from where you been.”

“You sure sound like you think you know me.”

“I don’t think I know you. I know you. You done a lot of wrong in this world – A lot of that wrong was doing nothing at all. Your mind is a jumble of regrets and despair with a big ol’ loud voice screaming at you that not a thing you did or didn’t do matters.” She paused and looked at me. “It matters. Trust me. My people was on the receiving end of all those things you did and didn’t do.”

“You got me confused with a fella who’s got sway in this world.”

“You got sway. God don’t send none of us down here just to take up space.”

“I guess Douglas didn’t tell you. I don’t believe in God.”

“He told me. He prays for you over it. I pray for you, too.”

I laughed. “I got news for you. Your prayers? They ain’t working.”

“Just because you can’t see the work being done don’t mean they ain’t working.”

I sighed. “I’ve heard this shit before. God works on his own time. We can’t understand  His ways or His needs. We have to accept – Have faith that all the suffering in this world is for the greater good. The war? God’s plan. Slavery? God’s plan. The killing – The scars – The rapes – The rage – The pile of bodies – The amputations – The solace sought in drink – In smoke – All God’s plan.”

She snickered. “God don’t plan nothing. Somebody steered you wrong on the what-for’s and how-to’s of God.”

“Then what the hell good is God? What is he, just some fat sumbitch sitting up in the clourds watching us fall to shit for laughs? Is that all God does?”

“God is a searcher. He’s a miner. He spends the eternal sifting through the hours of Man – Washing away the selfishness – The cruelty – All the blind-eyes – The thievery – The worship of money in all its forms – He sifts through all of Man’s weaknesses to find the one and only thing that matters in all the universe – In all the Kingdoms – In all the countries – In all the homesteads – Kindness is the only true treasure in all of creation. What one does out of concern and betterment for another is where God places all the riches of being. Sickness in mind and spirit belongs to those who put no stock into the care for others – Not by God’s hand, but because they deny themselves the joy of God. The radiant glow of God.”

I felt the tug of the pipe the more she spoke. “Those men – The ones in animal pelts and their infernal headgear – Do they deserve your kindness?”

She sat silent to let the minutes marinate before she said, “If you’re asking if I’m capable of forgiving them their hate and casting kindness upon them, I ain’t. I hate them for how they see me. I hate them for what they’ve done to Douglas – Your brother’s my heart. I hate them for what they’d do to little Virginia if ever they got a holt of her. I hate them for these things.

“Your people didn’t ever give me credit for being human, Augustus, but I am. I fail God every day – a hundred times a day. I share the same curse that all you white folks share. I ain’t worthy being loved by the one perfect God because ain’t nothing perfect about me. I do more to deserve his scorn than his smile, yet he still comes to me in search of all the kindness I have committed upon all his creations. He ain’t never give up on me, and I work and work and work to give him nuggets of kindness to unearth.

“What kindness have you committed, Augustus? How do you provide our Lord the nourishment he seeks?”

“Kindness ain’t really my thing. I don’t find it particularly useful.”

“You are living the same lie Douglas once lived.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s most definitely so. The fist your daddy raised you with is a lie. He brought you boys up to believe that the pain he doled out made him powerful. That ain’t power. Fear ain’t power.”

“Is this where you tell me love is the only true power?”

“This is where I don’t bother telling you what you already know.”

“Just because I know what you were going to say don’t mean I believe it.”

“You believe it.”

“I do?”

“You do. You just can’t let yourself say it. You don’t want to think on it. You don’t want the words to form in your head.”

“Why is that?”

“Because to admit such a thing would be admitting you’re living the life of a weak man.”

“You’re gonna have to stop thinking you know me. You don’t know the shit I waded through to get where I am today – Standing here in this doorway – Covered in all the shit I waded through from the day I was born to this moment in time – Love never saved me from none of it.”

She grunted and said, “I’ve met your momma. The love that woman has for you – For Charles – Even Douglas – That love saved you boys over and over again.”

“Do I look saved to you?” I fumed. “We don’t need to bring momma into this.”

“Why? The woman’s as saintly as they come. You should find nothing but joy in talking about her.”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about her.”

She let a moment pass before she said. “Why are you running from her?”

I give her red-faced silence.

“If there wasn’t but one last clean breath of air in this world, she’d give it to you before she’d take it for herself. Yet you can’t run far enough from her.”

“I got things that need to be done before I see her.”

“You gotta kill Charles. Isn’t that right?”

I didn’t respond.

“Seeing your momma might put a bug in your mind, right? You might not find the hate you need to do such a thing if you were to see your momma. She might infect you with her love.”

“You don’t know a goddamn thing about it.”

“I know what Charles done to Kenneth. I know. Douglas told me every bit of it, and I know what Kenneth was to you. I do .The world, this world made by men – Men like that Judge – Like my old master – All of ‘em – They built this world wrong. They crowded out love – They think otherwise – These men – They think since some old rule book writ out by ancient men says only one form of love is tolerable. They say that’s the way of God. That ain’t the way of God. God is love, Augustus, and he don’t exist in one form of it. He exists in all forms of it. Real love – Love where one body cares for the peace and joy of another – That kind of love ain’t never wrong – It ain’t ever absent God.

“You run from love because you was condemned for it. You was taught to be ashamed of it. I’m telling you that your love wasn’t wrong. Not a single second of it was wrong. Those who condemned you for it, they’re wrong. They’s chased God from their hearts, and you have let them convince you God don’t belong in yours.”

“There are a host of reasons God doesn’t want to take up residence in my heart, Miss Gladys. Chief among them is that he don’t exist.”

She stood and brushed away the dust and wrinkles from her dress. “We’re talking in circles now. The boy – Skinny as a rail – Patchwork for a beard – Boss of the Plains hat – What’s his name?”

“You mean Felix?”

“Yes, that’s the one. I’d like for him to escort me into town. Can that be arranged?”

“I can take you – ”

“I’m going to get some distance from you, Augustus. You drive me as mad as my husband. A trip to town is the best cure for such head pains.”

“Then I’ll go to town for you.”

“I’d prefer to go myself – ”

“But it’s not safe for you to go into town.”

“I am a black woman – Former slave – Held up in a farmhouse surrounded by former Confederate soldiers. I can’t imagine the town of Jackson is any less safe.”

I considered her point. “Fine. I’ll make the arrangements. When?”

“At once – If possible.”

“Who will look after Douglas?”

“His brother.”

“I can’t – ”

“It requires nothing – It will cost you no effort. Just sit. His fever has gone, but if it returns, keep him cooled at the forehead with wet rags. Have him sip willow bark tea. He’ll most likely be in his current state from my departure to return. Virginia has been my helper. She can help you should anything arise while I’m gone.”

She looked to me and seen my anxious expression.

“Good Lord, man. You fought a war. Surely, you’ve come across worse assignments than sitting watch over a sleeping man.”

I relented and went in search of Felix.