“O.k.” Papa said, “But don’t be ordering another Coke or a cup of coffee with it. They’ll give us all the free ice water we want and by supper time you won’t even remember what you drank with your dinner, anyway.”
Uncle Glen muttered to himself, “If I ever get out of this, I’ll make some real money, and I promise I’ll never live this way again.”
Thereafter, he kept this utterance deep within his subconscious mind, and though he was not aware of its lingering presence, it remained a motivating, driving force that would propel him to a pinnacle of material possessions, of popularity, and the recognition and the respect of men and of women, especially women. It would also drag him down with circumstance into a bondage from which he could never escape. He could not have anticipated that this transient oath would ultimately claim his life. Papa didn’t notice as they walked out along the line of shops toward the Square Cafe.
After a sparse lunch and a plethora of information, some verified, but most that could be readily discarded, Papa and Glen closed with the usual southern small talk. It was well after dark when they finally got home.
It had been a long day and Papa and Uncle Glen had not yet had their pivotal interview with Jordan Peltier, but now Papa was prepared.
Papa and Uncle Glen arose, bathed and were in Quitman early the following morning. They didn’t have the money to purchase an extensive breakfast but instead ordered two cups of coffee at the Square Cafe. At 9:00 a.m., they arrived at the Commercial Bank of Quitman, strode up to the nearest cashier and stated their purpose. “We need to see the bank president. We have a deposit and don’t have much time.”
To any bank staff person, “Deposits” meant putting money into an account, which meant an increase in the bank’s value. “Withdrawals” implied the removal of money from an account, reducing the depositor’s “investment” in the bank itself and negatively impacting the service and the purpose of the bank. They were quickly ushered to the bank president’s domain.
Several other customers had already arrived and were waiting their turns along the banister to the cubicle that comprised the President’s office. In anticipation of more fruitful business however, Papa and Glen were shown directly to their seats in front of Mr. Peltier’s desk and there they waited for the President’s arrival.
They both settled into the deep and pliant soft leather chairs after their conduct to the President’s desk. Papa knew that they would need to exercise their patience knowing that Mr. Peltier would arrive after a period of time that would establish the relative juxtapositions of their relationship. Fifteen minutes later Mr. Peltier strode into the office and sat down squarely without any word and looked at the members of the small makeshift band of appellants before him. Mr. Peltier settled into his swivel chair to listen to the pleas, of his initial customers of the day. That was Papa and Glen.
The president sat and stared at them and waited for their presentations of why they were there and what they wanted. Papa and Glen continued to sit, staring back at him obviously in no hurry.
The President became irritated. “WELL? What can I do for you today?” His tone bordered upon sarcasm. “I have a lot of good people here, and I need to take care of everyone that is waiting before we close.”
Papa enjoined, “Mr. Peltier, I am William Silas Hailes, and this is my son, Glen.”
The President felt particularly mischievous this morning and had pondered too long with his cups late into the prior evening. “Is his last name Hailes, too?” Mr. Peltier inquired, with an obvious glint of insinuation and self-pleasure.
Glen started to stand up and to move across the desk for the President’s throat. Hardly after flexing his first leg muscle, however, Papa Hailes’ firm and steady hand covered his son’s knee, blocking his motion to stand.
Papa looked at Mr. Peltier and his eyes narrowed and his gaze acquired an intensity that Mr. Peltier had not seen in the poor, terrified souls that he had encountered since his arrival in this remote impoverished hamlet. “Yes, Mr. Peltier,” Papa answered with a cold approximation of a whisper. “His last name is Hailes, and what is YOUR father’s last name?” Papa continued, his voice barely audible, “Or do you know?”
By now some of the other bank employees were leaning from their positions nearby listening in the direction of this animated conversation. A pronounced, yet quickly suppressed titter passed among the workers.
Mr. Peltier’s face flushed but before he could speak Papa quickly continued. “Mr. Peltier, our family has done business with the Commercial Bank of Quitman for as long as we have lived in Clarke County. We came here like every one of the other customers that are waiting to see you this morning. We understand that this is a difficult place for you since I know that you came from the beautiful bayou country down in southern Louisiana, and this is all new to you. Quitman is poor, quiet and for a single man without a wife or family, a very lonesome place without friends, kin or other loved ones.
We know that you, like Glen and I, meant no harm in these first few moments of our relationship. We want to make a deposit into the bank. We don’t have any additional reason to be here except that we would like to invite you out to our place in Hale, about six miles from here and to show you some southern hospitality that I know you are accustomed to back at home in New Iberia.” Papa continued, “We feel that it might make you more comfortable and you can be assured my wife, Miss Ellie Hailes will fix you a dinner that you won’t soon forget.”
Mr. Peltier was completely disarmed. Within a fraction of time Papa had turned a situation from one that could have created and sustained a lifetime of enmity between them into a means that each of them could escape and with no one the lesser for the confrontation. All of the other customers along the queue would surely side with Papa if this were not quickly smoothed and settled. Mr. Peltier was still the outsider here, and he was thinking furiously about his position with the remaining bank employees because he knew that they would side with Papa Hailes, too.
Mr. Peltier suddenly released his defensive position, submitted a tentative smile and reached his hand out to grasp Papa’s.
“Thank you for coming into the Bank this morning and we’ll take care of that deposit right away. Your invitation for a visit and dinner is most appreciated and I certainly accept. Just let me know when you are ready for me to come out to see you all.” He added, “It will help if you can give me two or three days’ notice before the date that you would like for me to come out and you can depend on my getting there on time.”
Mr. Peltier quickly scanned the faces present in the room. Everyone that he saw was smiling, seeming ready to burst forth into applause with little additional provocation. He looked at Papa Hailes and could not contain a laugh. He simply stated, “Sir, you are one hell of a man.”
Papa took his hand and smiled back at him, then said, “So is my son, Glen Hailes.” But Glen had already looked away still upset. Papa waited until they were on their way back to Hale before he spoke of it again.
Mr. Peltier was thinking of his horse when the interview ended. Chicago was a huge, brown and orange-red Tennessee walking horse that he could mount, ride and run with a gait that was so even and smooth that he could sit and read the fine print of his newspaper without jostling his cup of coffee, frequently laced with a jigger or two of his favorite bourbon whiskey.
Mr. Peltier decided at that moment to ride Chicago out to the Hailes’ place. He had hardly been up on him since he had arrived in Quitman, and he was sure that a pleasant, slow canter out to that part of the county would be enjoyed by the both of them, and their arrival at the Hailes’ place would make a lasting impression upon that entire small community, creating a subtle, yet positive commercial statement for the bank.
Papa and Glen stood up to depart. Papa was now the one to feel expansive. In a most unusual gesture, Papa stood up and removed his hat from the adjacent lamp stand. He smiled earnestly and said, “Yes sir, Mr. Peltier, we know how important you are to all of us. I certainl
y hope you can make it out to see us. I know the trip will certainly be worth your while.”
Papa extended his hand toward Mr. Peltier again. Mr. Peltier took it warmly and smiled. These amenities accomplished my grandfather and my uncle then turned and left the Bank. They planned for the coming visit as they slowly rode back home. They decided upon a Sunday three weeks hence.
They then began to craft a stage play that would be both entertaining for Mr. Peltier, and that would plant a seed in his brain that might provide the platform to bring new meaning to the old words “horticulture and agriculture” to Clarke County. They would also introduce two new surreptitious words, “vineyard and winemaking.” Hopefully these pursuits indirectly would bring new prosperity to Hale, and more directly to the Hailes family. They knew that they would be taking a chance in approaching the Banker.
Papa however, also knew that Mr. Peltier was still an inherently true Arcadian Frenchman. He had an inbred appreciation and enjoyment for food, and he knew the satisfaction to be experienced from the taste of a good glass of wine.
Papa also knew that he had an adventurous spirit and would likely take a sample of the bait that was carefully being prepared for his consideration. He might take at least a nibble. Whether he would take it all or spit it out, or at worst notify the law remained to be seen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SUNDAY VISIT
Papa and Uncle Glen spent the next two weeks after their visit to the Commercial Bank of Quitman moving through the forest cleaning out an easily accessible path wide enough to accommodate a man on horseback through the foliage and vines that comprised the first, and in all likelihood, the only ever fully tended all-native vineyard in America. This took an immense amount of physical labor because of the sparse concentration of the clusters, but the depth of the forest would provide an adequate supply of grapes.
On the Wednesday morning before the Sunday Mr. Peltier was to arrive, the sun had broken forth and the clouds had dissipated completely leaving behind wetness and the smell of pine needles drying in the residual wind that remained from the storm’s path that had recently passed on to the South and the East.
Uncle Glen had awakened, gotten up immediately, and eaten. Thereafter he got up and walked through the front door and out upon the porch. He sat and rocked, assimilating the pleasure of the morning and the meal into his body in preparation for the coming work. Then, he went back through the house and out the back door toward the barn.
He called to his to father, “Papa, let’s get going before it gets too hot.”
Papa called back, “Well, I’m sure glad you could get up and help me get all this together. I’ve been out here in the barn since before daybreak.”
Glen entered, and when his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness within he saw the outline of Papa. He had already loaded the conveyance with the necessary tools and hardware to continue tending and dressing the place for Sunday’s performance. He climbed up onto the wagon’s seat and said, “Glen, open both of the barn doors, I’m already loaded and ready to move out.”
Glen turned and walked through the doors, leaving them wide open to allow the wagon to move through into the barnyard outside. A little sheepishly he said, “Why didn’t you get me up? I would have been glad to come out here and help you get everything ready.”
“You needed your sleep,” Papa said. “Besides, I had already finished breakfast an hour before you, and I needed the exercise. Now you can take it from here and get on out to the woods so we can get this thing done.”
Now it was his son’s turn, and he climbed up onto the seat and took the reins from Papa’s hand. The horses moved forward with a quick slap on their rumps, down the narrow pair of earthen tracks, and into the forest ahead. They moved slowly, parting the dense ground foliage, trimming it back to a uniform width for the access paths, encountering patches of ground water and soft, oozing red clay mud.
They carefully smoothed the ruts created by their wagon wheels with shovels as they passed ahead, knowing that they would be dry and reasonably smooth within two to three days, well before the time Mr. Peltier would arrive for his inspection.
Finally, they reached the depth of the forest that signified the limit of their cultivation. They found another vine attached to a large oak tree. Glen pulled a ladder from the wagon and extended it upward to its maximum length against the tree. He set the footing of the ladder firmly into the ground and climbed up along the ascending grapevine until he gained the top rung of the ladder then slowly and carefully moved out onto a very wet and dripping, moss covered limb of the tree. He reached out in order to more appealingly display one heavy old vine. He extended himself beyond his ability to maintain his balance and his foot slipped from the wet limb. He began to fall.
He saved himself only by reaching out to a handy branch of the vine and was able to hang suspended thirty feet above the forest floor, holding on with his fingers and the palms of his hands.
Papa yelled up, “Glen, will you stop playing around and get down here. We still have a lot of work to do today!”
With unusual intensity Glen called down to his father, “Papa, I’m hanging by my fingernails up here. I’m gonna fall and you’re down there cracking jokes. I’m not fooling Papa, help me down or get under me and break my fall when I let go!”
Papa grumbled further, “Just a minute,” and quickly moved the ladder that was leaning against the tree trunk into a position beneath his son and held it vertically in order to allow the involuntary acrobat to stand upon it for a moment, then turn to a lower limb and descend gradually to the ground.
Despite the stiffness and soreness in his hands, arms and shoulders, and not only from the stress upon his body but also from the fear and panic that he had known during the entire experience, Glen climbed back into the same tree and resumed his work after an hour’s rest. He did not complain, however, because this vineyard had begun to assume the appearance of a designed and tended garden that would hopefully show purpose, intent and business feasibility to the prospect that would soon be arriving from Quitman on Sunday. There was too little time to finish the entire effect before the show would begin and there wasn’t enough time even to think of the potential for great personal injury or harm. Then it all would have been for nothing and Uncle Glen was determined that all of this was going to be done for a great deal more than nothing.
Papa Hailes had sent the invitation into town to Mr. Peltier at the Bank that he should be at the Hailes’ place between the hours of 12:30 and 2:00 p.m. on the appointed Sunday to allow time for the Hailes family to attend church services and to return home to complete the festive preparations for the visit. They continued to work every day from just before sunrise until there was just enough light to see the house.
It began to pay off. The horse path was wide enough and did not appear to have been hacked out of the jungle of underbrush, though it had taken twice the time to groom the way into its presentable appearance. The tree borne vines had been pruned and the leaves and branches cleared from in front of them in order that they could be readily appreciated from the ground below.
On the final Saturday night, the day before the anticipated visit, they completed their work, went home and helped Mama Hailes clean the porch and the house until everything was neat and in place for the arrival of tomorrow’s guest. They rehearsed each step of the plan over and over again until each had committed their respective parts to memory.
Papa, finally satisfied, got up from the table and walked into his bedroom. He sat down on the end of the bed, lowering his body gently onto the mattress being careful not to disturb the sleeping Miss Ellie. He undressed and placed his pants and shirt upon a chair before the fireplace then he climbed into bed.
Glen got up finally and went to the kitchen sink, took a dipper from its hook upon the wall, placed it into the water bucket and took a deep draught of the cooling liquid, and went to his bedroom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CALLIE
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sp; Inevitably on Sunday morning the day began. The earth’s dusty atmosphere caught and bent its first perceptible light, refracting, deflecting, and fracturing it’s energy into a spectrum of colors, painted upon billows of cumulus clouds, born of the Gulf’s moisture and borne upon its restless wind, painting contrasts of grey shadow and bright golden morning, reflecting pinks and magentas, reds and golds; the birth of a warm, hospitable and gentle Mississippi spring day.
Jordan Peltier had slept soundly. There had been little time for anything else. He had gone to a dance in De Soto the night before, and had taken a generous portion of spirits with him for his own consumption and for any of the stray and willing ladies in attendance that might share his evening and perhaps the rest of the night and the following morning, until his expected departure upon Chicago for his visit to the wild.
He had smiled to himself as he thought upon the bucolic scene that he expected in Hale and of the visit’s diversion and amusement that would strengthen and fortify him. It might even result in his acquisition of a piece of these red clay hills to be extracted from these cretinous farmers. They were not only impecunious, but displayed a peculiar arrogance that begged for correction.
He awakened with a dry, thickened and bilious tongue and two bright rings that illuminated the backs of his eyelids just moments before he blinked a salutation to the new day. He had virtually no remembrance of the final events of the prior evening except a dim recollection of holding an exquisite, diminutive, alabaster and pink, blue eyed goddess with blonde, curling hair that smiled up into his face and whose perfume and promise filled him with anticipation and expectation.
He turned in the bed, leaning outward to reach for a cigarette upon the night stand. He touched a warm, perfectly symmetrical and smooth, alabaster and pink, fat-filled orb, with a soft, pliant pink nipple attached to its summit. Appended to this God-given anatomical structure was the same Athena, the ethereal specter and shadow of the previous evening whose gentle sleep continued entirely oblivious to the ambivalent discovery of a baffled and troubled, yet totally captivated new President of the Commercial Bank of Quitman. He slowly and carefully rolled out of bed. As he bent down to reach for his slippers, Athena began to stir and her eyes opened. She smiled and reached for him. Jordan responded and gathered her into his arms.
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