One Must Wait

by Penny Mickelbury

  Carole Ann had gratefully accepted the hospitality of the Warmsley family, and pleaded with them to believe that she did not hold any of them responsible for what happened to her or to Al. She worked hard to convince them that it was only with their help that she had been able to expose both Leland and Larry; for they all—including Warren—believed that she single-handedly had effected Leland's fall from grace and power. Even when she reminded them of Jake's and Tommy's input.

  "But it was you who began it all, Cher," Lillian insisted. "It was you who muddied up the waters down on the bottom and made the big fish swim to the surface. It was you who made Larry turn against Leland."

  Carole Ann had protested. "I did not make Larry do anything."

  "You told him about Earlene." Eldon had explained that none of them ever spoke of Earlene, just as they never spoke of Lawrence. They had found a way, individually and collectively, to accept their siblings' long absence as permanent. And now they had been returned to present memory, the long-lost brother and sister, and those left behind struggled to deal with the pain. Especially Eldon, who had been close to Larry when they were boys. "He always was crazy 'bout Earlene. Looked after her like Ella Mae looked after me. Anything that hurt or bothered Earlene, hurt or bothered him. Even after all this time she still was his soft spot, his weak spot."

  "And what happened to her?" Carole Ann had asked and then wished she hadn't as she watched pain spread like a blush across Eldon's face. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them with his fists. Then he took a deep breath that looked as if it hurt his lungs and told how, after the rape, Earlene had "completely lost touch with reality" and had to be hospitalized, an experience which proved even more destructive since, back then, state facilities were segregated and Earlene was convinced that she was white.

  "After three years in the state asylum for crazy Coloreds there was nothing left of the Earlene we knew," Eldon had whispered, tears falling freely. "Mama went and got her. Swore she was white, that it was all a mistake saying she was Colored. We haven't seen her since then. We send her money through the Western Union 'cause she won't come near us."

  Carole Ann regretted having asked, regretted having used Earlene as a weapon against Larry.

  And Larry had vanished, though not before revealing the one secret about Parish Petroleum that had not yet been discovered, the reason for Leland's bizarre and brutal campaign to establish the legal existence of the company and to return it to his control: Oil had been discovered on the St. Mary Parish property, which technically and legally belonged to Lillian Forchette and any remaining survivors of the earlier lawsuit against the company. He had returned to Washington immediately after his anguished rendezvous with Carole Ann in the Doubletree Hotel lounge, collected his case file on Parish Petroleum, and had it Federal Expressed to Carole Ann in care of Lillian at the UPTO. Included was documented proof of Leland's efforts to conceal his ownership of Parish Petroleum, and the illegal activities of the company under Leland's direction for the last twenty years, along with a sworn affidavit of Larry's own involvement as legal counsel. And Larry had informed them that his wife had always known that he was Black. He'd thought it necessary to explain to her why it was he didn't want children.

  "But why did he involve Al?" Carole Ann asked Warren, who, having combined Larry's documentation with Carole Ann's, finally had unraveled the truth about Parish Petroleum's history.

  "Because he couldn't—wouldn’t—risk returning home," Warren replied. "He was convinced somebody would recognize him, and he was right. Somebody certainly would have had he gone tromping around St. Martin or St. Mary. That's why Leland did that part of the dirty work. Nothing unusual about him sloshing around the bayous."

  "And it was Leland who did all the dirty work? All the murders were Leland's doing?" she asked.

  He nodded and laid out the history of Parish Petroleum: From its inception, he said, the company operated illegally, even before the Environmental Protection Agency imposed standards and guidelines for the operation of chemical plants, and the disposal of waste and by-products. Parish Petroleum was the parent of three distinct entities, all of them petrochemical companies, and all of them users, producers, and disposers of highly toxic wastes. "Parish always dumped, buried or burned what it couldn't use. That's why the ground at the Assumption compound is forever poisoned," Warren said. "That's why the people who worked there are forever poisoned. Lil will never be healthy," he said bitterly. "The fucking poison is in her, is a part of her now."

  "And the Assumption Parish operation was independent of the other two operations?" Carole Ann asked quickly, to shift Warren's focus from the pain she saw rise in him when he spoke of Lil's pain.

  "Not at all," he replied, just as quickly, grateful to her for the return to the subject at hand. "In fact, the chemical being produced at Assumption, where Lil's husband worked, was derived from a by-product of the St. Martin operation. But, and it's a very big but," he emphasized, "the workers never knew of the connection. Only the owners knew. And it was set up that way by Leland to conceal his thievery." And he explained how Leland and the other two owners habitually skimmed the profits off the top of each of the three producing entities, leaving the legal entity, Parish Petroleum, barely functional, at least on paper. "That's why, when Lil filed her lawsuit, they folded so quickly. Gave up and gave in. They didn't want a probe of the operation. So they declared bankruptcy, and because there was no record of any profits, they gave the company to the plaintiffs. A useless, dying patch of land."

  "While the other part of Parish Petroleum continued to operate?"

  Warren nodded his head. "Kept operating, kept making money, and kept killing people and land."

  "But how is it possible that no one knew?" Carole Ann was both bewildered and dismayed, for it seemed that the only answer was that lawyers like Al made it possible for the Parish Petroleums to evade, avoid and ignore the law.

  "Leland Devereaux is a powerful public figure. His partners are powerful private figures. Extremely wealthy men, all of them, they own people as well as property and the means of production. Even anyone inclined to suspect anything odd wouldn't be foolish enough to confront Leland. Everybody's always known what a mean bastard he is. That's why we help get him re-elected. So he'll stay away."

  Surprise creased Carole Ann's face. "Have you always known that Leland owned Parish Petroleum?"

  Warren smiled an honest, true smile, and said without the slightest hint of derision, "Of course, Cher. You can't do anything around here without your family knowing about it." And Warren continued his narration, explaining that Parish Petroleum's clandestine operation continued for more than fifteen years, until, suddenly and without warning, the St. Martin operation was shut down. And Carole Ann recalled the afternoon spent with Sadie Cord.

  "Mrs. Cord said everybody took that to be a hopeful sign.

  "Shows you how stupid we were," Warren said, the bitterness back full-force in his voice. "The old folks, like Tante Sadie, believing it was possible because they naturally believe in good; and the rest of us believing it was possible because we believed in nothing, and having something to hope for was a relief. But we should have known better. People like Leland don't do things without reasons, and the reasons usually involve money, and Leland's reasons usually involve some violation of the law."

  "Which returns me to my original question," Carole Ann said. "Why then, did Leland involve Al? Or was that Larry's doing?" And she realized that she didn't know if Al had known Leland and for a moment the thought so disturbed her that she could think of nothing else, could not complete her thought or her question to Warren, which, in turn, disturbed him.

  "Are you alright?" he asked, jumping to his feet, concern clouding his eyes behind their silver rims as he squatted down beside the brightly colored overstuffed chair that had become her favorite resting place.

  She told him what she'd thought and was overcome by a massive wave of sadness when Warren explained that he, Jake and Tommy ha
d concluded that Leland had been one of the Parish Petroleum men Al had dined with the night of his murder. Had dined with and then murdered. He held her hands tightly, helping her traverse the moment, then returned to the adjacent recliner and put his feet up.

  "Al had all of it figured out. Everything but the reason for the sudden push to get Parish Petroleum right with the EPA. I also think he ceased to care about the reason, C.A. Because by that time, he was so involved with the people and their lives that his mission had totally shifted," Warren said quietly. "He no longer was the company lawyer. He'd switched sides."

  "And what was that reason, Warren? Why did Leland kill him if he didn't know the final piece to the puzzle?"

  "Oil. On the St. Mary property. And Leland believed that Al knew because Al had gone there and had taken a boat trip with the three St. Vincent boys, who just happened to be on Leland's rigging crew. But Al didn't know that. He hired them because they knew the bayou."

  "So Al died for nothing." Carole Ann spat out the words.

  "Oh, no. Not for nothing. At least not from Leland's perspective. Don't forget Al knew that Parish Petroleum had not been in compliance with EPA regs for years."

  "So what?" Carole Ann's interest in Parish Petroleum was waning.

  "So Leland couldn't drill for oil unless Parish Petroleum was right with the EPA, and without Al's cooperation, the EPA would never certify Parish Petroleum, and Al wasn't about to cooperate," Warren said smugly, aware that Carole Ann didn't have the full picture.

  She sighed and looked at Warren who was sitting patiently, waiting for her to regain her equilibrium and to ask him to fill in the missing blank. "All right, already. What is it I don't know?" She didn't succeed in fully covering her irritation with him, and she noted that he smirked.

  "It would cost a fortune and take a lifetime for a new company to obtain EPA permission to drill for oil. An old, established company, however, would have a much easier time of it. So, Leland paid off a bunch of clerks and regulatory functionaries to back-date documents showing that Parish Petroleum had paid taxes and filed emission and waste disposal reports in a timely fashion."

  Carole Ann no longer was listening to Warren, but was, instead, hearing Al's voice tell her that Parish Petroleum seemed not to exist except on paper, that there were records of bribes and pay-offs to officials, that the men of Parish Petroleum had dead eyes. She remembered the feeling of his fear and his pain and ached to think that he'd known so much and had shared so little with her. Somewhere deep within, she believed that he would have told her everything once he'd quit and was free to discuss the case. But she knew that she always would carry this sadness with her: Her husband had undergone a transformation of spirit and had not thought it safe to share that with her. She would never forgive herself for being whoever it was that Al hadn't believed it safe to confide in. And she would never forgive him for not telling her that she had failed him in so fundamental a way.

  Leland had been arrested and charged with kidnapping, assault, felonious assault, aggravated battery, assault with deadly force, and half a dozen other felonies and misdemeanors in a brilliantly conceived and drafted complaint filed by Warren Forchette, Esq, on behalf of his client, Carole Ann Gibson Crandall. Leland also had been released on his own recognizance—he was, after all, a member of the United States House of Representatives—and had enjoyed exactly thirty-six hours of freedom, before he was again arrested and charged with negligent homicide (among other things) in the deaths of three fishermen who had drowned mysteriously in Assumption Bayou earlier in the year. He was being held without bond due to the presence of a corroborating witness, the same witness who had agreed to testify against Leland in exchange for dismissal of the charges against him for participating in the kidnapping and battery of Carole Ann Gibson.

  During her more than two weeks of recuperation, Carole Ann spent long hours assessing her feelings. About everything and everyone. Her life had changed so dramatically that the most important people in it were people who'd either been strangers to her a month earlier, or whose presence in her life had been peripheral, at best: Jake Graham and Tommy Griffin and Herve Cord and Warren Forchette quite literally had saved her life, and she had come to rely on them and trust them in ways she had never before trusted men. Ella Mae and Lillian Forchette now were emotional anchors more crucial to her well-being that her closest friends; and her closest friends would never know the depth of the pain and fear and horror and shame that she had spilled out to the two Warmsley women. Even her mother would never know those things. Eldon Warmsley and Dave Crandall loomed large and powerful in her eyes—not as father figures, for not only didn't they seek to nurture her, she did not seek nurturing from them; rather, they were prophets and teachers to be studied and heeded. And Sadie Cord was something so ancient as to defy nomenclature and definition; something fundamental and essential and elemental. She did not understand the reasons for it, but Carole Ann did understand that to be held in the old woman's embrace and to receive her ministrations, eased the pain, both in her body and in her spirit.

  Carole Ann drank Sadie's teas and drank the broths she made and bathed in the mixtures she concocted and did not wonder that the fever and the pain dissipated. Carole Ann slept as Sadie rubbed salves and ointments into the battered places of her body, and did not wonder that the bruises lightened and faded and disappeared. Carole Ann listened as the old woman spoke of the paths of forgiveness and harmony and beauty and joy, and felt the healing of her mind and emotions and spirit.

  On Carole Ann's final evening in New Orleans, Eldon and Merle had a big party for her. A Come Back Soon party they called it, refusing to call it a Going Away party. Dave and his wife drove over from Atlanta and would drive her back since he didn't trust her to drive back alone, and Tommy and Valerie flew in from D.C. They had plenty of time on their hands, both of them having been suspended without pay from the police department for "gross misconduct," which was the polite way of expressing dissatisfaction with the fact that they had involved themselves in criminal matters outside their own jurisdiction. And when Merle learned that they were newly engaged, the fete became an Engagement Party as well.

  Eldon hired a band and constructed a dance tent in his back yard and roasted a whole pig and half a cow. Herve grilled a dozen big "feesh" and Warren brought four different kinds of beer for her to sample. Merle and Lillian and Ella Mae and Sadie made gumbos and stews and salads and cakes and pies, and everybody who attended brought a casserole or a loaf or bowl or a dish.

  Carole Ann, who loved to dance, could not; she still was too stiff and sore for more than the most basic of movements, like walking, sitting, standing; and she wondered what shape she'd be in had Sadie not cared for her. But there was nothing wrong with her appetite, and she ate until she thought she'd burst, and she learned that night to love a new kind of music.

  She also learned that night that she had more than just a new and good friend in Lillian Forchette Gailliard. For the first week of her recuperation, Lillian had read to her, and Carole Ann had found herself fascinated by the other woman's eclectic tastes: She'd read the poetry of Lucille Clifton and Audre Lorde June Jordan and Rumi; the social and political theory of Angela Davis and bell hooks and Cornell West; and the science fiction of Octavia Butler and Samuel Delaney. Then she'd brought books for Carole Ann to read herself—Eastern philosophy and religion and the history of Voudoun in Louisiana and in the Caribbean. And they'd discussed everything, including Lil's belief that all Black people should return to the South, the source of their roots in America. Comfortably reclined in chaise lounges on the gentle hill behind Merle and Eldon's house, looking down on the party, Lil again proffered that theory.

  "But what if they're not from the South? I'm not from the South," Carole Ann said, not wanting to be argumentative but not wanting to accede to what she perceived as a fallacy.

  "You got South in you, Cher, I can tell. I can always tell," Lil said with an aggravating smugness that, for some reason, irritat
ed Carole Ann.

  "That's ridiculous," she said, displaying her irritation.

  "Where's your Mama from?" Lil asked lightly.

  "Los Angeles," Carole Ann replied smugly. "My father, too."

  Lil nodded wisely. "Uh uh. And what part of Mississippi or Louisiana or Arkansas did your grandparents come from?" And she chuckled at the disbelief spreading on Carole Ann's face. "Only one part of the great Southern migration led to New York and Chicago and Detroit, Cher. Black folks from this part of the South went West. To California."

  Carole Ann raised her hands palms up in a gesture of defeat. "They were from Mississippi, near Hattiesburg, I'm told, but all my information is second hand. I never knew my grandparents and my mother was a bit sketchy on the details." And Carole Ann grinned and told Lil how her mother's parents had refused to permit their over-protected daughter more than one date with any of the young men she brought home. Her father's only conversation with Grayce's suitors had been to inquire about the boys' parents' birthplace. Three times, Grayce told Carole Ann, the answer had been Los Angeles; once, Mexico; and once Arkansas. That boy she'd been allowed to go out with twice. Then the increasingly frustrated Grayce had brought home Mitchell Gibson, whose parents were from Biloxi, Mississippi. Her father had grinned, clapped the young man on the back, and invited him to dinner. The rest, as they say, is history.

  "You get your Mama to tell you everything she remembers about what her folks told her," Lil said, turning serious. "You hear me, Cher? Those stories will tell you more about who you are than any amount of education or money. Those stories are why you're sittin' out here in the middle of the Louisiana countryside surrounded by people who now consider you family and who will forever defend and protect you."