Mr. Creed liked Richard sincerely. He wanted to do something for him to alleviate his sadness, his aloneness. One day he suggested a walk to the river. They did that several times. Then he suggested an overnight fishing trip, it was so beautiful on the river at night. They went finally to stay overnight in a place Creed knew. Richard had little interest in fishing, but he lay back on the thick soft grass, surrounded by berry bushes and tall, quiet trees outlined against the sky. He stared at the clear, bright, glittering stars. His heart filled up until his throat hurt him; he cried. Creed heard him, but thought it best not to say anything. It was a harsh, quiet, hacking cry. The sound of pain. The sobs finally dwindled into the sounds of the wind rustling. Richard fell asleep under the stars to the sounds of the night, only to awaken to the same barren life. Though he found, somehow, he had been comforted a bit just by feeling free a little while.
On the way home, Creed tried to find someway to speak to Richard, to console him, to give him some kind of hope. They were passing through the shadows of the tall trees, listening to the sounds of all the life around them, hearing the sound of the river rushing past them as if eager for its destination. Mr. Creed ventured, “Ain’t it somethin! All this here beauty out here just for us! God sho is good to us!”
Richard smiled indulgently. “Do you really believe in all that? I thought you were an intelligent man, Creed.” He bent under a branch in his path.
Creed smiled back. “It sure must’a took a lot of intelligence to do all this here, don’t you think? God ain’t no fool, now, no suh!”
Richard, still smiling, looked at him, and shook his head, “Just what does God do for you, Creed. Look where he left your people so long. Look where you are now, for that matter. What good does He do you?”
“Wellllll, suh,” Creed rubbed his near-bald head and smiled again, “You got to put the blame where it be due! I blive there is a devil, and God say he is mighty busy separating people with hate. It’s been some mighty mean and evil people in this here world. Still is, and always will be till the end of these times, Bible say. Life, somebody else’s life, don’t mean a thing to them. You got to blame them.”
Richard brushed a cottontail weed stuck to his pants leg. “That’s what I mean, Creed, what did God do for you all with people like that?”
“Why, we survived, Mr. Richard, we survived. Now, we free. Pretty soon, ain’t no tellin! This’s just 1914. Times is still hard, but they ain’t as hard as they was. We can get education now. Best thing is, we free!”
The indulgence stayed on Richard’s face as he continued to smile. “It takes a mighty little to make you happy, so I guess your God is good for you.”
They were almost at the clearing, the road to the Befoe house was just ahead, here is where they would part until next time. Richard looked at Creed expectantly, so Creed answered, “Mighty little? Oh, I know. You mean I ain’t got much. You mean money? Big houses? One of them new-fangled automobiles? Well, He gave me something nobody can’t take away. He made me so I can see all this beauty. EVERYday, every season. He make me know something is way bigger than me. Another thing He let me know, ain’t nothin a man can think mean a damn-gone thing to me, lessin he got my life in his hands. But the best thing? Was love, suh. Oh, yeah. He teach me bout love. I loves everything. See, like, one of them fish I catch ain’t got a mean look in his eye and be too young to die, I throw em back. I love them, too. Mr. Richard, you can’t beat love. Ain’t NOTHIN better than love … for anything. Make you feel good, make you beautiful inside. God gave me that.” He stopped a moment, took a deep breath. “And Mr. Richard, I don’t mean no harm, but … I ain’t cryin at night fore I goes to sleep. I smile and thank God for another day.” He wiped his head again, smiled gently and looked serious. “Now you let me know when you wants to go fishin again. I’ll be ready. We ain’t seen all the beauty yet!”
But Richard stopped him. “If that’s how you feel, why do you take up your time with me, try to get information from me about stocks and such?”
“Well, Mr. Richard, it ain’t the stocks and such what makes me come round you. It’s cause … I think you got some nice … things inside you. I think you don’t mean no harm to nobody, though God knows with that bullet makin factory you got, somebody gettin harmed. But … I don’t think you thinks of that. I … just … think you a nice man. And you don’t find too many nice people in this world sometime. So I comes to see you. That’s all is why.” Creed could not, would not, say he felt sorry for Richard. So they parted. Richard was not smiling, nor was he angry for more than a minute. He was thoughtful.
Now Satan knew these men were talking. He knew Creed, and he knew Richard certainly. But he did not care about two old men talking about life and him. He knew the munition plants Richard was invested in would run long after Richard was dead. Satan was busy with other thoughts. He was bored. He had ravaged life long before Babylon, Greece, Rome, China and Egypt. He had helped create wars all over Europe with greedy and envious, rapacious hearts. Inquisitions. Asia, India, Spain—where had he not been busy? Adolf, with such persuasive powers, now had to be prepared, his mind to be groomed and twisted. The large expanse of Russia. Alllll those people, what a war they could make! He loved Vatican City, because they loved gold. There were a few sincere people in all that mask of righteousness, but they were not enough to count. What, or who, can stop hatred and greed in mankind? Even for no gain, a little malice can work wonders.
“Show me,” Satan laughed up at God. “Show me I am wrong!” But now … now … he was bored. He was working on scientists, inventors. He had led many who were once peaceful in the country to desert their old homes and families to find their ways to cities. Even whole families were led there by those who promoted poverty. Satan smiled, “More temptations. Where they would prefer money to peace.” He was working on a device that would bring strangers with their strange ideas into the homes of everyone in the world. Oh, they could do good with it, but, knowing mankind, he knew the liars and thieves would use it, too. And this land was new! It is time for wars to begin. The slaughter of the sons! And those left to have the burden of paying for that slaughter. He was tired of wars that killed one or two men at a time. It could be hundreds! Thousands at a time! He had been working on that a long time now. So they had abolished slavery, let there be a new slavery—be free, yet work for the government. Income tax must, would pass. Something must pay for these new inventions and wars. Satan was too busy to stay with such little people as Richard or Creed, or even Carlene. He had so much to do, and he was bored. And so … he flew away on his business. God looked down upon this. He shook His head, for He had a plan, and He knew Satan knew that plan, and He knew woe would be heavy on the earth. The people would be laden with woe, but they would laugh at the way out of that woe. They would not believe God, they would continue to place their trust in governments, and the governments would fuck them to death with lies.
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when Richard reached home, there was a message that his mother was dying and he must come to her house at once. He made arrangements to go immediately. The message also stipulated that if he came, he was to come alone. As he packed and gave orders to Baily, he wondered why his mother disliked Carlene so much. But there was no time to think now. He sent a message to Carlene by Baily that he was leaving and why.
Now though Carlene hated Richard and his mother, she knew Richard would be inheriting many millions of dollars. There was no other heir. She nodded her head quickly to the message and went to his rooms. Richard was astonished. Carlene had not been in his rooms in years. She took his hands, pressed them to her breast, then reached up and drew him to her body, patting his back with loving concern. “Oh, Richard, I do not know what to say at such a terrible time as this.” She already knew the message had asked that she not come with him. “I will go with you, it will only take me a moment to pack a few things.”
Richard stepped back from her, shaking his head, and said, “No, no, I wi
ll be alright. No need to disturb you.” But Carlene persisted, knowing she was not going. “But I am your wife. I should be at your side.” Richard assured her, “I will be alright. I will let you know what is happening.” She, reluctantly, gave in to him, going sadly to her rooms. She did wave good-by to him from the door when he left.
When at last Richard arrived by train, he rushed to his mother’s home, the mansion. He had not thought of the money, the property he would inherit. He had so much of that. He was truly concerned for his mother. In a moment he did not understand, he wished for Mr. Creed, but that passed quickly. His thoughts returned to his mother. He rushed past the servants to her room.
She was lying back on the finest cotton and lace pillows, the yellow satin quilt covering her added a sicker color to her already dying gray skin, her frail body was hardly a lump in the bed. She seemed to be dozing, her breath rasping lightly. When Richard came quietly into the room, she turned her head, slowly, to face him. He could tell she was in pain. The lines were etched deeply in her face.
“Mother, I am here. Oh, are you in much pain? Why didn’t you tell me, send for me before now?”
“I cannot remember when I have not been in some kind of pain. Sit down, Richard.” He had to bend down to hear her.
“Should I call your nurse or the doctor to give you something for the pain?”
“There is no medicine to stop my pain. Let it be.”
Richard lay his head on the bed beside her, holding her hands, pressing them to his lips.
“Stop, Richard, stop. There is not much time. Let me just … be … and enjoy your visit.”
“Oh, Mother. I have been so busy with my own life. The banks, the plants, Richlene. I have not given you enough time. Perhaps I could have found …”
“How is … Richlene?”
“Your granddaughter is … doing much better. She has her own family, you know that. She can talk, Mother, she can talk. I plan to …”
“Richard … Richlene is not my granddaughter.”
“What are you saying?” He smiled gently. “She is my child, she loves you. She always wants to visit you.”
His mother tried to raise her head and shoulders from the bed. She began to gasp a little from the effort. “I said … she is not my granddaughter.”
“Mother! Please lie down. Rest. Do not exert yourself. I don’t want you to die!”
Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I am not going to die until I tell you what I want you to know. I don’t want …” Anger, disgust choked her, she coughed, then continued, “that harlot to control you and your fortune for one more minute.” She reached out to him. “Lift me, raise me up. I cannot speak well.”
Richard assisted her hesitantly. “Mother, Mother … it can wait. You must try to live. Live.”
She shook her head ever so slowly. It took all of her strength. “It cannot wait, I have already waited for more than forty years. From the time I knew what your father was … waited for this very day.”
“Mother, what are you saying? Lie down please.”
“You are my son. I believe I love you. But … you are a fool.”
“Why, I am taking care of everything, Mother. I have lost nothing of ours. I have added to our fortune by a great deal.”
“Business and property are not all of life. I know now. I have had nothing but things. Things. You can weigh gold, but you cannot see … life.”
“But I have a family … like you always …”
“Hush … be quiet, my son. You do not have a family. I did not have a family from the day I left my father’s home … with Richard … until you were born. You do not have a family.”
“Richlene is my family.”
“Richlene is not your child.”
Richard drew back from the bed. “You are ill indeed! You are losing your mind.”
“Richlene is your father’s child. You were blinded. Made a fool of.” She took a deep wavering breath. “Don’t you remember the beginning of your courtship? And who Carlene was with most of the time?” Her illness forced her to fall back on the bed. Spittle gathered at the corners of her dry, parched lips. “Richlene is your father’s child.”
Richard stared at his mother, dropping her hand without being conscious of it. She was gasping for breath, the sound of her rasping filling the quiet, darkened room. Her eyes were open wide, staring at her son, desperately trying to say all she had held in her heart for so many years. She was not thinking of the pain she was giving her son, the misery.
“He made my life meaningless. He destroyed my womanhood, my vanity, my joy in being myself. He loved other women so, he made me feel ugly, unwanted and useless. No matter what I did for him, he always had someone else to give the love he should have given me. He had my mind, my nerves, my love … so …”
They were both silent. Richard staring at her with horror, her eyes closed in exhaustion. A sob tore from Richard’s throat. “But, why, why tell it now, Mother?”
Sweat from her efforts had dampened her gray hair and it clung in tendrils around her darkening face. “Because …” She reached for his hand, weakly. “Because you ARE my son. Because you DO love me … not just the money.” Her last gasps hung on the heavy air of the room and stayed there in the silence, screaming. “I mean to help you. Would you rather have made … love … with your daughter than with your sister?” She lay her head down slowly, breathed once more. She was dead.
Richard sat there, tears streaming down his face. Crying. Crying for what? His daughter who was not his daughter? His father who had betrayed him in the worse possible way? His mother who hated his father more than she loved him, her son, or she would not have hurt him like this … now? He was human. He cried for himself.
later, at the family plot, the private cemetery on their land, Richard’s eyes were red, puffed but dry as they lowered his mother into the ground beside his father. Not too many people were there. The few who came had known Marian many years. Had worked for her or were truly her friends. Richard had cried all his tears. He was now thinking of his life.
Carlene sent many messages. She wanted to come “be in my place at your side,” she said. But in truth, she wanted to roam through the house, look at the things that had belonged to Richard the elder. Take and keep something of his. And, of course, to take any of the many treasures the mansion held. Weren’t they hers now? she thought. Richard sent the final message, “I think you had better not come. Thank you.” So she waited.
Before he left that home he planned to return to one day and live in, he finally decided what he would do about what he had been thinking about. He had his father’s grave dug up and the decaying casket moved to a place in the chicken yard that was kept thriving on the estate. The gravediggers thought he was “going off his ticker.” But he paid them well and, after a few drinks over the shovels, they laughed him away. He left the gravestone off. His farewell words to his father were, “You will have chickenshit for a gravestone. I will see that you have it for all of my life, until it is forgotten you are here.”
Then, he went home to Yoville and Carlene.
Though Richard did not change his way of being after he returned from his trip, Carlene knew that he knew … something. There was a difference. The distance now between them was made by him. This did not make her feel ashamed or hurt; instead, she became angry.
Carlene had been planning his death for many years. She still held the capsules, but time had passed and she had never used them. Either he had bought his own medicine while on his travels or he was gone so often she could not set up a regular system. But now, he was home much more often for longer periods of time. Now she wanted him gone … for good. She bought a new supply and prepared them once more.
She had, for the last eight months or so, taken charge of his medicine. Sending for it, issuing it to Baily, who did not see the necessity for any change from the old way but who questioned nothing. Richard held up well, but he was tired more often now. Carlene thought, “If there
was just something, anything, to excite him, scare him, shock him, I believe it would kill him. He is dying on his feet! What is taking him so long?! Maybe that doctor lied about that salt, that medicine!”
She was too cautious to ask any other doctor or person. “I have time, what the hell!” So she waited.
She was still waiting this morning as she sat before her pictures, thinking over her life, the past, the present, the future. The spider slept and waited. And Yinyang was on her way.
• • •
the sun was getting warmer as the day moved on. Yin had not found the little shack Josephus had told her about. She would need rougher clothes and shoes. She planned to go back again, soon. She was not giving up. She had to make her life.
Now, Yin held her head high with a serious, little hat perched on it, stepped firmly to the main road and turned in the direction of the Befoes.
When she reached the walkway of the Befoes’ huge, immaculate house with its manicured lawns, she almost hesitated, but her feet went down to the ground and forward as if of their own will, and she started the walk of 150 feet or so to the wide front terrace-porch. She could see a man sitting there—a white man with a Negro man sitting sideways on the porch steps. They both watched her as she came toward them. She did not smile. She looked what she thought was businesslike, serious but pleasant. Her heart beat wildly. “This is my life,” she thought. Mr. Befoe didn’t turn his eyes away; he smiled slightly as she reached the house.
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the picture of Richard, her husband, lay face down on the desk, and Carlene’s thoughts returned to herself. She caressed the picture of Richard the elder, her lover. She was about to pick his picture up again and pour herself another drink, when she heard voices floating lightly on the air coming through her window. “Why it sounds like a woman’s voice. A young woman’s voice.” She leaned forward to her window to see who Richard might be talking to. She saw a pretty, young woman, not too young, but young. Very neat, crisp white blouse beneath a navy blue, well-cut suit of the latest style. The dark shining hair was pulled severely back and topped with a small but charming hat. Carlene leaned closer to the window, not caring whether she was seen or not.
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