by Thomas Cater
“So you do intend to buy it?” She asked.
“Yes,” I replied relieved.
“I never thought I’d see the day anyone but a Ryder would live in that house,” she said, removing a bowl of steaming vegetables from the range.
“Are there anymore Ryders left?” I asked.
She shook her head and lowered her eyes.
“They’re all dead and presumably buried,” she said, while tossing some life into a slightly wilted green salad.
“Not on the property, I hope,” I joked cryptically.
She smiled a little too expansively, as if she were testing my equilibrium.
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s where most of them are,” she said, “just beyond the house. The family plot is a little overgrown right now, but I think you can still see it; it has a wall around it.”
“Like the wall surrounding the house?” I asked fearing even more complications.
“Yes,” she said, “but it’s much smaller, only two or three feet high.”
I stared curiously at Virgil. Violet intercepted the communication.
“What’s going on? You two are not telling me everything,” she said.
“It’s the wall, Violet,” Virgil replied. “For some reason, it’s come up several times in the conversation today. Do you know anything about it?”
She deliberated for a moment; a knife poised over a well-done rump roast, and then motioned me toward the table.
“I don’t know when it was built, but sections of it have always been there. When they renovated the state hospital, they also repaired the wall. Elinore’s father was the superintendent at the time. Later, he became chairman of the board.”
I could no longer restrain myself. “He was the superintendent of the mental hospital?”
“Yes,” she replied, “is that important?”
She sat at the opposite end of the table, picked up a fork and made a motion for all to eat.
“He wasn’t a stockholder in the old bank, was he?” I asked, making short work of the beef.
Her eyes studied the texture of the potatoes, dismissed the occasional lump and cold spot, and replied, “Yes, I think he was.”
My enthusiasm was now beyond restraint. “Is there a chance, Violet, you might know the name of the man who built the wall?”
Her lips pursed and her eyes filled with deliberation. “Fraid not,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Mother might know, but I doubt it. She’s eighty-five years old and has a hard time with names, unless she’s written them down, which she is always doing. There are notes and memos she’s written lying all over the house, and she never throws anything away.”
Her eyes brightened. “Written it down! Yes! Why didn’t I think of it before? There is an old history book at the local library by Henry Morgan, a descendant of one of the state's first families. It’s one of those thick privately bound typewritten books with only one copy in existence. He wrote the book in the early 1940s and mentioned the Ryder family, especially Elinore.
“She was a very attractive lady when she was young, so he says, but she went a little crazy as she grew older. I guess it was because of her eyesight and living out there on Scary Creek. They say her father rebuilt the wall to keep her in, but I think he built it to keep out others. You can go to the library tomorrow and look at the book. I’m sure it will help you in your search for…what is it you’re looking for, Charles?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. Not only did it call into question my present circumstance, but also the questionable premise of my life. What was I looking for: a house, a home, an investment, a warm and friendly place to die, a change of pace, a place to hide, to escape from the past, the present, the future, others, or me? Was I really looking for something, or was something looking for me?
“I don’t know how it involves me, but I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t. After all, whatever is out there, we will be spending the rest of our lives together.”
I tried to laugh but no one found my explanation even remotely humorous, and the expression in Virgil’s eyes was not the least bit sympathetic.
“Are you married, Charles?” Violet asked, as she carved the slab of beef.
“Yes and no,” I said, “I’m being divorced.”
“Do you intend to live in the house after you buy it?”
“Yes, but I plan to travel, too, though I don’t know where.”
I felt absurd and laughed at myself again. Her manner was unshaken.
“And what do you intend to do for water?”
The question nearly created a vacuum in the room. All the wisdom of two able-bodied men sucked down and out through the prophetic foresight of one homemaker.
“I beg your pardon?”
Violet’s gaze traveled back and forth across the table, as if she could hardly believe the impracticality she was witnessing.
“Virgil, don’t tell me you haven’t told Charles about the water problem?”
“What water problem?” I asked.
Virgil kept his face and eyes averted toward his plate while he cleared his throat.
“I did forget to mention one little problem,” he continued.
“One little problem?” she said with a mocking voice and smile, while she steered another fork full of mashed potatoes toward her mouth.
“I guess this is a good time to mention it,” I replied.
He cleared his throat again and focused his eyes on a glass of water smudged with children’s greasy fingerprints.
“The water out there is no good,” he said.
An uneasy silence joined us at the table. I could hear and feel blood pounding in my neck, ears and brain. Violet stopped chewing and waited for my response.
“Well, can it be fixed?”
Virgil swallowed hard. “It’s been bad a long time. They tried to fix it once, but no luck.”
“Who tried and how long ago?” I asked.
“The Ryders … and a long time ago.”
“That long?” I asked.
Virgil nodded, shoved a slice of bread into his mouth and chewed listlessly.
“So what’s wrong with it that it can’t be fixed?” I asked, trying to avoid an impending hemorrhage.
Violet had endured silence before, but I could see it was something she did not encourage, so she broke in. “It’s black,” she said, “and it smells awful!”
The pain traveled deep into the very core of my being. The house I had just contracted to buy was without water, and a man I believed I could trust had betrayed me, and for what, a lousy six percent commission?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “A creek runs by the house and there is such an awful lot of land.”
Virgil placed the fork on his plate and wiped gravy from his lips. The words he was preparing to deliver I hoped would show me how to eliminate, or at least contend with the problem.
“There have been a dozen wells dug out there,” he said. “They’re good for a few days, but then they all go bad, black and smelly.”
“What causes it?” I asked. “Why can’t something be done?”
“The odor, we think, comes from sulfur in the water. Did you ever smell rotten eggs? Well, it smells like that only worse. Normally sulfur water would be good for you, despite the smell, but this stuff is black and were not sure why. It could have something to do with the coal, but no one seems to know.”
“What did the Ryders do?” I asked.
“It wasn’t always bad,” he replied. “It happened later. Most people out there dip water from the creek or buy bottled water.”
“The water in the creek is all right?”
“Good enough,” he said, “if you boil it.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, nursing doubts.
Virgil thought so too. He stopped sucking air through his teeth.
“These things have a way of reversing themselves,” he said in his most conciliatory tone. His words, however, came too late to make a difference.
Violet pus
hed away from the table. “Let’s have coffee in the living room,” she said, brushing crumbs from her lap. “I just thought of something that might interest you, Charles.”
“I don’t know if I can stand any more revelations tonight,” I said.
“Relax,” she replied. “What I have to say may help.”
I would appreciate a single lumen of light on the problem. I could not help but wonder about the market for bottled ‘black water,’ or if it could be used for utilitarian purposes, such as flushing a commode.
We wandered into the living room amid speculations of subsidized water and sewer projects materializing in the not too distant future that would put Elanville back on the economic map and command higher real estate values.
We settled into padded furniture facing a fireplace with gas logs that crackled like a real wood fire. Violet poured creamy brandy and coffee into cups and passed them around. What the fire did for the flesh, the brandy accomplished for the spirit. She topped her cup off with a squirt of whip cream from an aerosol can and crawled into the narrow space in Virgil’s chair.
I felt a little envy at the sight of that domestic scene, but he seemed somewhat reluctant to appreciate it or her. Virgil sipped his drink. I began to suspect that I had worn my welcome as thin as a pair of old polyester pants when Violet spoke.
“Do you remember Amy Taylor, the black lady who used to care for Elinore? She still lives in the alley behind the elementary school.”
Virgil’s interest had piqued long ago. “I’d forgotten about her,” he said, sounding very tired.
“So has everyone else,” Violet said, eyebrow arching in disdain. “Her mother took care of Elinore for a few years, and when she died, Amy took over. She’s bed-ridden now, but her grandson keeps me posted on her health.”
“Do you think she’s well enough to have visitors?” I asked.
“We can always try,” Violet replied. “She can only say no.”
Crawling out of her nest, she thumbed through a thin, pint-sized phone book. “Only one Amy Taylor here,” she said. “It’s got to be her.”
She dialed, got an answer and introduced herself. The listener was patient, cooperative, politely indulging her every word. He agreed to a meeting. She laid the phone back in its cradle.
“Your luck has changed, Charles. Her grandson said 'she’s feeling fine and would enjoy the company'. The Ryders are her favorite topic of conversation and if we come right away, we might catch her between naps.”
It was no easy task giving up the comfort of the fire and the brandy to delve more deeply into the cold gray past of the Ryder family. I felt once more like a warrior summoned to an unpopular battle. To ensure his commission, Virgil, too, felt an uneasy need to respond. We stirred half-heartedly into action.
“Give me a second,” Violet said, “I’ll call mother and tell her I’m going to leave the children with her.”
We returned to the chairs smiling and grateful for the fire and brandy and waited while she prepared their two munchkins for travel.
It took less than 20 minutes to clothe the kids, drop them off at grandma’s house and drive to Amy Taylor’s home, a small wood-frame house sitting on the edge of a weedy lot behind an abandoned elementary school.
“It used to be the ‘colored’ school,” Violet said. “Now it’s used for storage. Once there were about two dozen black families living in town, but the Great Depression drove them away. Now there are only two or three.”
Chapter Six
We gathered on the front porch and Virgil knocked. Barely a minute passed before a man in his late forties appeared at the door and invited us in. Amy Taylor’s grandson clenched a briar pipe between his teeth, sported a thick, neatly trimmed mustache and wore a knitted cardigan sweater. We shook hands and filed around our host and into the living room.
Amy was in reclining in a hospital bed. Living arrangements had been modified for her comfort. Photos of past and present generations crowded tabletops and dressers. There were pictures of young black women with small babies, and older black women with grown children. There were black soldiers, sailors, pilots, hardened veterans, innocents, scholars and professionals. The branches of the family tree were abundantly fruitful.
She extended both her sagging arms to Violet in a greeting. Virgil and I grinned, nodded painfully and tried to make small talk with Rodney, the pipe-smoking grandson. Once chairs were in the proper place, Rodney turned the lamplight on and the TV off.
“Do you know how long it’s been since we talked?” Violet asked.
The old woman nodded and her eyes moistened.
“Do you remember Virgil, my husband?”
He took her hand as if he were picking up a sparrow.
“And this is Mr. Case. He is the gentleman who wants to know about the Ryder house.”
The skin on her hand was soft and smooth, but she had a firm healthy grip. I tried to convey in a handshake my own flawed fallibility.
“I want to understand what’s going on out there, Mrs. Taylor, and I think I need your help.”
She nodded and withdrew her hand. The understanding that seemed to fill her eyes was encouraging.
“I hope your memory is better than mine,” I said. “If someone asked me about events that happened a few years ago, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
She smiled, secure in the visions and memories of the past surrounding her.
“Can you tell me about the Ryders?” I asked.
“I know all about ‘em,” she said. “I lived with ‘em for 15 years.”
I leaned back in the chair relieved. Her voice was strong and her words were slow but clear, the sign of a sound mind.
“Do you mind talking about them, now that they’re gone?” I asked.
Her smile was playful, implying that some things understood were better left unsaid. She shook her head and her jowls waddled.
“What you want to know, Frank?” she asked.
The use of my unmentioned middle name caught me off guard. Everyone stared, waiting to see how I would respond.
“Tell me about Elinore,” I said.
Her eyes closed and a smile softened her face.
“What can I tell you that you don’t already know?” she said, and then her expression changed. Her eyes filled with tears and I thought she was going to cry.
“That poor baby was locked up all those years. It’s no wonder she went crazy. If it hadn’t been for you, Frank…” and then she was silent.
The room also filled with silence. Even the grandson removed the pipe from his mouth so his teeth would not knock against the wood. He acted as if he were hearing this account for the first time.
“Please go on,” I said.
The old woman’s lower lip trembled. “He said she had ‘organic weaknesses’ and couldn’t go anywhere. But when he went away, the mice would play,” she said, and chuckled until tears spilled from her eyes. Her expression changed again. “Then he sent her up to the attic,” she said.
The hair on the back of my neck was starting to stand on end, but the others were too engrossed in Amy’s story and their own stunned surprise to notice.
“We know she was nearly blind, but what kind of organic weaknesses was ‘he’ talking about?” I asked.
“She wasn’t always that way,” Amy said. “She could see some things well. She could see frogs and lizards in the grass and on the trees thirty feet away. She had those big funny pop-eyes that stared at you hard. There were a lot of people scared to look that baby in the eyes.”
“Were you scared of her, Amy?” I asked.
“She was my friend,” Amy said. “We grew up together. Still, I tried not to look in her eyes, ‘cept maybe once or twice. The poor thing was blind as a mole before too long. Her pappy made me learn to read and write so’s I could be her eyes.”
“Were pop eyes her organic weakness, Amy,” I asked. If it wasn't for her age, I might have suspected cataracts could have caused the problem. Science knew next to not
hing about the ‘milky white rain’ of the eyes, until recently.
The old woman grinned and laughed. I was expecting to hear her describe some anatomical ambiguities involving things as radical as the shape of her skull.
“She liked to talk about her powers,” Amy said. Breath did not come easily to her lungs. “She said she could speak in tongues, call down lightning and thunder, makes dogs howl and people do her bidding.”
I glanced at Virgil. He quickly averted his eyes. Violet was hanging on every word, as was the old woman’s grandson.
“Did you ever hear her speak in tongues?” I asked.
“Of course, often; she could go on for hours.”
“Did she fancy herself a witch?” I asked, knowing that Svengalis and spiritualists were the fashion in those days.
Amy shrugged. “Not really. She said she could make people living or dead also do her bidding.”
“Did you ever see anyone do her bidding?” I asked.
“She had a powerful influence over her pappy,” Amy said, “and all the young men seemed to like her, even though he wouldn’t let them come within a mile.”
She covered her mouth with a hand and laughed silently. “But we had our ways, didn’t we, Frank?”
The reference was beginning to make me feel uneasy. “What do you mean, ‘we had our ways?’” I asked, embarrassed.
“Being blind didn’t make that girl different from any other woman. She had feelings and needs and enjoyed the company of a young man now and then. Her pappy said, ‘no,’ but we had ways.”
“Amy, do you mean that Elinore had a…secret boyfriend?” Violet asked, unable to restrain her curiosity.
“She had lots of ‘em,” the old woman said, “I used to fix it so’s she could meet ‘em all the time. I wouldn’t let ‘em hurt her. I just brought them together so she could do a little spoonin’.”
“Were they lovers or just friends?” I asked, indulging my own curiosity.
Amy frowned. “Just friends; I wouldn’t let a man hurt her, she was my baby.”
“How old were you, Amy?”
“I was just a child, in my teens.”
“How old was Elinore?”
A wrinkle troubled her brow. “She was old enough; older than me, but I couldn’t tell.”
