by Paul Hawkins
I brought down fire and gave mankind the tools to grow
but did they use the gifts I gave them? NO!
Oh what a stupid species I've redeemed.
I gave them fire but all they seem to want to do
is quarrel amongst themselves and breed with kin.
If I could do it all again, now would I?
Guess!
The gods have tricked me, I confess
I should've given fire to chimps instead.
Oh worthless race!
Through your representative I face you,
to find out why I shouldn't just erase you.
MANKIND (coming forward, in rags):
"Oh gentle god..."
But the play went no further. A protester had snuck back stage and fiddled with the pulleys until the drama student came crashing down onto three or four disruptors. An old lady cushioned his fall. Ernest stepped forward to help the boy but another old woman reproached him for corrupting young minds. Soon, however, two campus security policemen and one beefy gym student showed up and separated the factions.
One of the security officials turned to Mr. White: "I think you better just leave, sir."
"He's the devil!" one of the protesters screamed. He was a pious skinny young man who held a bible and who had worked himself into such a lather that his face was a mottle of red and white freckles.
"Yes junior, I'm the devil," White answered.
"Just go sir," the security guard said, "just go."
And so he did. He took one of the costume department's laurel wreaths for his troubles and wore it as he drove home, going through cigarettes like a chimney. He flicked the spent butts out at the countryside with a practiced snap of his fingers.
It was still early afternoon when he pulled back in front of the leaning gray mansion. He walked in and sat upright in his red chair in the living room and scowled for about an hour. But then he went upstairs and changed. He came down wearing a fresh white suit. "Otto," he said, "That production gave me a headache. There's a special kind of pills I had the pharmacist in Tulsa compound for me. Would you mind picking them up?"
Otto agreed, drove to retrieve the medicine, and arrived back late in the afternoon. As he drew the car to a stop he met a crew of workmen just departing the house. Mr. Perfect was on the porch, thanking them for their help.
"Thanks for doing the job so quickly. No, thank you - farewell."
White turned his back and began to walk toward the house. Otto came up fast to meet him.
"Who were they?"
White paused. "Oh, I have them working on a project for me."
"What sort of project?"
"I'm having them build a study for me behind the house."
"But you have a perfectly good study already, in that room we cleared out."
"Yes, but this one will be out by itself, more quiet, and without the ghost of that stymied old man who used to work in it hanging about. But mostly, there'll be fewer things to distract me. Come take a look." They walked around to the back of the house, and Mr. Perfect gestured out into the empty field.
In the distance about halfway to the treeline stood a small wooden frame. No walls. It could not have been much more than fifteen feet long by fifteen feet wide. There was already a desk and a chair inside it.
"This is absurd!" Otto said.
But White, with his blue eyes bright and his gold hair askew, pulled his valet by the elbow into the bare frame of the building and gave him a tour of the space with broad sweeps of his hands. "This will all be walls, of course - I have ordered rosewood panels from Brazil, so they may take a while to get here. This wall will be all bookshelves. Here will be one window looking out on the woods, and this one will look toward the house. I intend to begin working in here right away. I think at last I am going to be able to get things done."
"But there are no walls. Why move a desk in already?"
White tapped his temple. "Walls confine the mind. I want to take advantage of the open perspective while I can."
Otto sighed, looked at White/Perfect, then walked back toward the main house to begin cooking supper. As he peeled potatoes he looked up through the kitchen window to see his employer, who was obviously inebriated to the gills, standing out in the field with his hands on his hips and his head held high, admiring the timber frame. Otto looked down to see he had whittled the potato to a nub.
Later that night when he was fixing a cup of tea before bed, Otto looked out the same window and saw his employer sitting out in the skeleton of his shack, scratching infrequently at a notepad by the light of a lantern. He shook his head and carried his cup and saucer to his room and went to bed.
*
Mr. White awoke to find he had slept in his outdoor office all night. He felt itchy and hot and a sheet of paper was stuck to his face. He peeled it off and read what he had written so earnestly the night before: "The eternal views the ternal through me" (crossed through), and "I am the eyes of the eternal." (crossed through with the note "too pompous"), and "Oh, these mortal orbs that try to sift the ternal for eternity!" (note: "rather fine").
He wadded the paper up and threw it at a waste basket and missed but didn't care. He rose and stretched his arms high above his head and yawned like a cat then scratched. He walked out of his shed and to the back porch, then entered the kitchen with a slam of the spring-loaded back door.
"Good morning," Otto said.
The kitchen was filled with the smells of coffee and bacon and eggs and toast. Mr. White sat at the end of the table and Otto put a cup of coffee in front of him.
"Attend a bacchanal?" Otto asked. "Who put the flowers in your hair?"
"What?" Mr. White said, putting a hand to his brow. Daisies fell past his face. He dislodged a rustic garland then shook his head vigorously.
"Out with the naiads and dryads or something?" Otto said turning back to the stove.
"I have no idea how those got there."
"You mean you don't remember?"
"It's no wine-induced amnesia, Otto – I just don't know."
Otto pushed the flowers aside on the table and put a plate in front of White. White dug into the breakfast rigorously and then Otto returned with a plate of his own.
"Sleeping outside it could have been worse, I suppose," Otto said over his coffee cup. "Could have been sprayed by a skunk, bitten by a raccoon, or even carried off into the hills by a puma."
Mr. White frowned. "Laugh, but it may indicate a local youth element up to no good. Things start out tame, Otto, but then they escalate."
"Uh-hm."
"Damn," Mr. White said, already discarding his own theory. "I wonder who did do it?" he added, toast crumbs spraying from his mouth.
Once he had breakfasted and cleaned up, Mr. White came down the stairs with healthy color in his cheeks. He cornered Otto in the kitchen and said: "If I am going to stay here and jog my mind into continual productivity, I need to stake out a route for my morning constitutional."
"Well, there is only one road that goes past here, Mr. White..."
"Nonsense!" exploded White. "Why, time itself could be described as a mere straight line by the uninsightful. But it's so much more. I need to walk the route of my constitutional, to note the objects of interest, the places where my mind may catch and swirl in epicycles and eddies of productivity, like when a person twirls a stick in a cotton candy machine."
"I understand."
White fixed him with a keen eye. "Do you? I suspect you're holding an `I told you so' card back somewhere behind those beady brown eyes. I'll be gathering examples of the efficacy of this constitutional, and of constitutionals in general, for the moment you object."
They both just stood there.
"Fine, Mr. White," Otto said at last.
With that Mr. White turned on his heel and exited, to walk the route of his constitutional, and Otto turned to a sink full of dishes.
The morning was hot, and blackjack and swe
etgum trees swayed in a breeze at a spot near western edge of town. To the west of this spot the land was wide and brown and rolled away toward empty countryside. To the east a once-manicured plot of land rested under the towering branches of an elm tree. Spearmint-colored blades of spent irises wagged in the shade and guarded the weathered bases of a plaster birdbath and a saint. The shadows enforced a languor that reduced grass to struggling clumps amidst bare soil and dead leaves.
Along the side of the road three retired fenceposts sagged with slack wire between them. Off to one side protruded the foundation of a long-gone building, and on this low grey slab sat three people. Their faces were relaxed and unconcerned. The first person was a large, matronly woman, the second a dark lithe girl, and the third a grey old man. The man held a thermos of coffee, and the other two held cups from which they occasionally took sips. The hats of these three people unconsciously mirrored the three tilts of the fenceposts. One wore a top hat, one a sunbonnet, and one a round, banded straw hat that might have been acquired at a long-past political campaign or carnival. The three talked unhurriedly amongst themselves.
The wearer of the top hat was the lean, dark teen-aged girl. She sat on the gray foundation slab in a straight, shapeless green dress that stopped just above her knees. The top hat looked to have been crushed then straightened, perhaps more than once. A closer examination might have revealed slits where a horse's ears once protruded, but she seldom let anybody get that close. The hat's brim shielded her dark eyes as she sipped and grimaced, perhaps more as a preemptive warning than out of actual annoyance.
The lady in the sun hat was round in body and face and wore a bright flowery dress. She had apples in her cheeks and a cheery smile. She shook as she laughed, and her head was tilted slightly back and her eyes rolled up so much as to be almost all white. Then she put both hands on her own knees so that she was perfectly symmetrical, pulling all things in toward herself.
The man in the faded round straw hat had a thin upper body that expanded abruptly at his middle and then tapered abruptly again. He wore a collarless shirt, unbuttoned to the top of his scooped t-shirt, and he also wore suspenders. His grey cotton pants gaped and crept dangerously south at the back whenever he hunched over to blow across his coffee. His face was round like the lady's but older, past the age when any child he might have ever raised would have grown and departed. His eyes held a vigor untainted by much intelligence or malice, and the firmness of the cheeks implied a zeal for life. He would have been perfect subject for an urban journalist looking to caricature the virtues of rural existence and a clean life lived right, free from the corruption of sin or advertising.
They sat on the grey slab and exchanged only yawns and occasional nudges for more coffee. But then the expansive woman spoke.
"Lord it's a hot day. What say you, hired hand?"
The older man, Port Gil, nodded. "I'll wear m'self out working today."
"You never wear yourself out," the girl said.
"Why, if your papa in heaven could hear you sass..."
"He aint in heaven, he's in St. Louis," the woman corrected.
"My mistake," Gil said. "I'm getting old."
The girl said nothing but sipped her coffee with a low mean look.
"Who's that a-comin' now?" the woman asked.
They all looked down the road. A white dot was way down the clay road, coming briskly toward them.
"From the bank?" the girl asked.
"Naw, from the bank be comin' from the opposite direction. Nonetheless, Gil, be ready with your hoe."
Gil nodded.
The figure from the distance walked up. It was a middle-aged man with a lean, tanned face. He was wearing an off-white linen suit. He stopped in the middle of the road and stared at the three of them.
"Where's your house?" he asked.
"Tornado took it," the lady said.
"It's with her papa now," Gil said, thumbing toward the girl. She exhaled sharply through her nose but continued sipping her coffee.
The woman with the flowery dress rose to introductions. "I'm Maye Weather. This is my niece Birchola Park and my hired man Port Gil. We got a house on the back acres, used to be the sharecropper's house. It won't ever replace the Manse," she said, patting the small foundation, "but with a few good harvests I reckon we can start to rebuild."
"And you are, sir?" Port asked.
"I know who he is," the girl said. "He's that fancy millionaire done come home. He killed a man in Europe and now can't hardly no one stand him."
"Murder's hardly grounds for expulsion from Europe," Gil said.
"It is when they already don't like you no how," the girl continued, staring at the man.
The flowery woman shook with a forced laugh. "You'll have to pardon my niece," she said. "She comes from a broken home and has been sent to me for proper raising. Would you like some coffee?"
"Thank you but I can't afford to break the pace of my constitutional."
"Well, this aint no toll gate!" the woman laughed. "We just like to sit and watch the sun light up the hills as it rises. You're welcome to join us any morning."
"I remember your papa," Gil said, squinting at Ernest White. "You was Chris White's boy, then he died, then his brother Isaiah, he took you in."
"That's right."
"Fine folks, fine folks. Chris liked the ladies!"
White's eyebrows hiked a fraction.
"Gawd, the times I tried to get Isaiah to laugh, even once - so serious, that one."
"He was focused mostly on his farm. It was very important to him."
"I used to be landed gentry myself, til the bank took it. Now I work where I can get work. But my clothes, you see, attest to a more expansive past. I aint complaining - the Lord has plans for me."
"I'm sure he does," Mr. White said. "Well, I must be going."
"Yeah, I remember them boys, them fathers of yours," Gil continued.
"Don't pay him too much mind, Mr. White," the woman said. "He sometimes remembers 40 years ago right clearly and forgets the details of the here-and-now."
"Chores slip his mind most easily," the girl said.
"Why, your sass rocks your father in heaven," Gil said.
"He aint in heaven, he's in St. Louis," the girl reminded.
"I have to be going," the man said. He tipped his hat and departed.
"What a friendly man!" the flowery woman said. "Maybe if we be nice to him each morning, he'll see fit to help us rebuild the Manse."
"He never give anyone what they needed," the girl said, squinting at him as he walked away. "He only ever gives what folks think they want."
"Jabbers like the daughter of a poet," Gil said with a bleary stare and laugh. "'Course that's what she is, though she hates her mama for it."
As they watched the man depart, Aunt Maye commented in the direction of Port Gil, "I reckon he just needs someone to throw him a welcome home party."
"Oh, that's it, Maye." Birchola said as flatly as possible.
"Sounds like a wonderful idea!" Port Gil said.
"You aint got no money to throw a party," the girl said.
"Why, it aint about getting, it's about the giving," Maye said. "I bet the barn will pretty up nice enough. And if he feels welcome, he might give us some money."
"It's about the givin'," Port Gil said, nodding into emptiness.
The girl seethed.
"'Sides, if I say it's for him I can call in a few favors to help with the party."
"Everybody around this town owes him a little something," Port Gil said thoughtfully. "That's why they despise him."
The girl stared at Gil's rheumy eyes then rose with a huff and left.
"Suffer fools!" the aunt called after her. "Don't be late for your work at the drug store!"
*
Mr. White found out about the party through his mother's executor, a thin, humorless lawyer of late middle age. He always wore dark suits that tried to project slightly more worldly success than he could afford. Henc
e they were always ill-cut and a decade or so out of style. He had a sour face which he tried to rein in around his better paying customers. It made him look like someone had bet he couldn’t smile and eat a lemon at the same time.
The man came to visit while Mr. White was out in his study. He stood in his dark suit outside the naked timber frame one blindingly hot afternoon. A feral hen and her chicks pecked the ground around him.
Ernest noticed his shadow and looked up. "Come in," he said.
The man looked this way and that at the bare frame but then stepped between the timbers so that he stood next to White. He told about the plans for the party.
"Good Lord!" Mr. White said. "That's the last thing I want!"
"I understand, sir."
"I have no intention of attending, but for God's sake, I don't want some half-assed affair put on in my name - much less in a barn. Reserve the civic center, and direct $1000 towards its funding."
"Very good."
"Better yet, keep a finger in things. Don't let them spend the money on anything tacky."
"Such as...?"
White just stared blankly at him. "Oh hell. Here - I'll just make you a list of things to buy."
"Very good, sir."
White scribbled furiously at a sheet of his pad, then he tore off the page and handed it to the man. "And see to it that Otto manages the details. He has common sense."
The man received the list but just stood there like a wooden statue.
Mr. White looked at him and then stabbed his finger at the list he'd made. "Look at that last figure in the list - that's the stipend for you."
"Very good, sir," the black stork of a man said. He bowed and walked away, while the hen and her speckled chicks let themselves into the study and out again.
White frowned and reburied his face in a book about Plato, Geometry and Egyptology, though the mid-day sun made the pages all but blinding.
Chapter 4
One week later, the evening of the party came. Only a select few had been invited, though rumor of the catered doings had buzzed quickly to the edge of town and beyond.
"Come on – no one's going over to see him!"
It was an August evening and a last bit of yellow hung like a slice of lemon in the grey sky. A boy of about 12 had come running down Main Street. He stuck his head in the door of the drug store and yelled to his friend at the soda fountain.
"Mr. White – he threw himself a welcome home party but no one's going over to see him!"
The store owner stopped polishing glasses and listened.
