FUCK 'EM. THAT was the spiritual message I'd received from my prayer to Walterene, the woman who taught me how to get along with people I didn't like, to take the polite, Southern approach to conflict. Of course, that had been fifteen years earlier; maybe as she aged, she'd decided being genteel wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Certainly, Vernon and Gladys had never employed the tactic. Are these words to live by? I sat on the front porch of Walterene and Ruby's house smoking a cigarette and contemplating the meaning of "Fuck 'em."
"Ruby," I called. "Want to go see Grandma?"
She pushed the storm door open and asked, "You going over to the Dilworth house?"
"Thinking about it," I said.
Ruby wiped her hands on a dishtowel she seemed to always have nearby. "You go ahead. I might take a nap in a few minutes." She started to turn away, then stopped. "You know, Gladys will probably be home."
"I know."
MARTHA ANSWERED THE doorbell; the dark skin surrounding her eyes sagged with wrinkles and time. On my previous visits, I hadn't taken a good look at how she had aged like the rest of the family. "Good afternoon, Mister Derek. I'm sorry, but your grandmother is sleeping and your mother and father aren't home."
"That's okay." I walked in the door she had opened only a crack. "I had a few things I wanted to ask you."
She scurried after me as I headed for the kitchen. "What do you want to talk to me about? You should be talking to your parents if you got questions, not me. I don't get involved in the matters of this family, never have, never will. Mister Derek, you stop walking away from me." Her frantic monologue pulled out my smile.
"Martha, relax." I sat down at the small kitchen table in the breakfast nook. "Come sit down." As she fidgeted and settled down on the chair across from me, I jumped up. "Let me get us some tea."
"I'll get it." She almost rocketed out of her seat.
I smiled and returned to my chair. "Is it okay to smoke in here?" I placed my Marlboro Lights on the table.
The iced tea swirled in her hands as she checked the door. "Okay." Her reluctance evaporated. "In fact, I might just join you."She handed me two glasses and placed the pitcher of tea on the table, then, with the slow movements of someone not wanting to make any noise, she pushed the sash of the window up to let the anticipated smoke drift out of the room.
I poured our drinks while Martha slid into her chair and produced a pack of Camels from her dress pocket. She touched the end of her cigarette to my flickering lighter and inhaled.
"Whew," she exhaled stormcloud-gray smoke, "I needed this."
Lighting one for myself, I asked, "Hard day?"
"Almost over. I don't like to smoke in the house, but if anybody asks, I'll blame it on you." She grinned, and I knew we had a common vice that bound us. "Now, I told you yesterday that I don't know anything about that old man."
"Mr. Sams?" I asked.
"Don't get coy with old Martha. I reckon that's why you're here, talking to me." She gulped her tea.
"Martha," I soothed, "when I was little, I'd come in here and watch you cook and talk for hours. You used to call me your daisy."
"Daisy." She laughed, then opened her mouth to say something, but she must have thought better of it.
"Daisy," I repeated. "Pansy is what you meant, wasn't it?"
"No, oh, no, Mister Derek. I never thought that." Her eyes pleaded for forgiveness as she held my hand across the table.
"Martha, this isn't the fifties. I'm gay. It's not a secret; it's not something to be ashamed of; I love men, always have. That's why I liked being in here with you. I knew you were a strong woman who loved men. I remember seeing you and your husband together and wishing that my parents acted as in love as you two did. I always thought you knew a secret to make men love you that the women of my family didn't have."
She blushed a little. "Mister Derek, you flatter me."
"And you can stop calling me Mister Derek. We're both too old for that."
"You know," she began, "since Oscar died, this job and this family have been my life. We never had kids of our own."
"I'm sorry to hear that." I ground out my cigarette in a cereal bowl she had placed between us.
"Oh, don't be. I have a bunch of nieces and nephews just like Ms. Ruby and Ms. Walterene do, although it does get lonely going home to an empty house. I used to watch all of you playing around here and wished me and Oscar had a big place for the whole family to gather." She wriggled the bowl back and forth. "My niece, Gloria, is a vice president at Bank of America downtown. She does some kind of computer work. Janeen, another niece, is a nurse over at Presbyterian Hospital."
"I'm sure you're proud of them." I watched as the memories played across her face.
"They were all such good children. Reminded me a lot of you and your brother and sister. That Tim sure would get into trouble from time to time." Tim's reputation as a rascal never wavered in the eyes of those who knew him. "And Valerie was such a sweet girl."
"Since I came back for Walterene's funeral," I decided to get to the point, "stories and denials about Mr. Sams seem to be everywhere. I'm curious about that. I know Walterene loved him like one of the family, and now that she's gone, I can't find anyone who wants to talk about him or his memory."
Martha lit another cigarette and took two quick drags. "Like I told you yesterday, that was before my time here."
"But you must have heard something."
"Mister Derek, let the dead stay dead."
"That's not the way to honor their memory. I won't do that for Walterene, and I know you won't do that for your husband Oscar. I want the same respect for Mr. Sams; he meant a lot to Walterene."
She stared at the bowl of ashes for a second, then took another drag from the cigarette.
I waited.
"I see what you mean. I never mentioned this to anyone in your family, not that it matters, but Mr. Sampson lived across the street from my mother. He loved working here, just like I do." Her tired eyes held me for a moment. "I remember him always talking about what a good family Mr. Ernest Harris had. Mr. Sampson didn't have any family of his own, just this one."
"Wait." Words from Walterene's diary came back to me; she had seen his daughter in town. "Didn't he have children?"
"Oh yeah," she said. "His wife died in childbirth, but the grandparents, Mrs. Sampson's folks, raised the baby girl. He didn't know how to deal with a baby."
"Is his daughter still alive?"
"No," she sighed. "Back in the seventies, she was killed by drugs. That family was doomed. His wife died, then him, and finally, the only daughter shoots poison up her arm. When his wife died, and with the baby growing up across town without him, he worked all the time; kept his mind off things, I guess. I think that's why he stayed on so long with Mr. Harris, and why it hurt him so much when he was fired. Mama said he killed himself, but us kids thought the men in sheets got him."
"The Klan?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "Those were some bad times. You didn't hear that much activity in Charlotte, usually only out in the country. But, time to time, they'd come through Brooklyn."
" Brooklyn?" I asked, not aware of any area in Charlotte called that.
"Downtown, used to be a black place called Brooklyn. It's where the government buildings are today. Also, Wilmore was a beautiful place, just over the railroad tracks past South Boulevard. That's where Mama's house was, and Mr. Sampson's. Wilmore and its neat clean old mill houses was the place where all the colored people lived who worked for the white families in Dilworth and Myers Park. Now, all that is rundown, almost as bad as the projects. Anyway, the Klan didn't have much need to be here."
"Is there ever a need?"
A sad smile graced her black somber face. "You and me know there ain't ever a need for that, but some folks do. That's why it's still around."
"So, you think the Klan killed Mr. Sams?"
She considered her stance. "Mr. Sams killed Mr. Sams. Although Mama said nobody who knew him thought he had done anything wrong, he ran like a guilty man. Why else would he be in those woods alone at night?"
"But wasn't he chased? Do you remember anyone around his house that night?"
"I couldn't have been more than ten or twelve, and probably fast asleep when it all happened. Mama didn't tell us anything about it except that he was found hanging in a tree." She took a long sip of her tea.
"The tree outside Walterene's house," I added.
Hands still on her glass of tea, her brown eyes widened. "What?"
"Yes, ma'am. Walterene knew exactly which tree he had died in, and when that area was developed after the war, she and Ruby bought the house built on that plot of land."
Martha stood and leaned against the sink, hands supporting her weight. "Ms. Walterene always had a sentimental spot in her heart for old Mr. Sampson."
I took over rotating the bowl as I talked. "Yeah, she has a collection of elephants, apparently started by an old stuffed toy Mr. Sams had given her." I counted the number of bowl rotations from a good spin: two and a half. A few ashes flew out onto the table, and I wiped them up with my hand.
"That was Mr. Sampson, I remember he claimed his ancestors rode elephants across Africa. He always talked about elephants." Martha returned to her chair at the table. "Mama said he was full of baloney and sawdust. That old man ain't no African prince any more than I am Cleopatra's wash woman.' Mama was a good Christian, but she didn't like to hear people putting on airs."
I smiled at the thought of Mr. Sams telling African fairytales to little-girl versions of Walterene and Ruby. "Does the elephant have any special significance in," I wasn't sure how to phrase it, "in African folklore, uh, culture, life?"
"Ask an African," she shot back with a smirk. "I'm American." To my relief, she winked at me as if to say, stop trying to be so politically correct. Then I remembered Walterene's message from the grave: Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em if they take themselves too serious; fuck 'em if they ignore you; fuck 'em if they lie to you; fuck 'em if they try to fuck you. I smiled back at Martha as she tapped her cigarette pack on the table. "So, what does an elephant symbolize?"
She lit another Camel and exhaled. "Strength and dignity, that's the elephant."
"He must have seen that in Walterene," I said more to myself than to Martha.
"Yes, sir. Ms. Walterene had strength and dignity."
The kitchen door burst open. "Martha," Gladys barked. "Is that cigarette smoke I smell?" She stood in the doorway glaring at me. Martha snuffed out her cigarette and jumped to her feet. The jerky, stick figure of Gladys the Bitch made me think of Nancy Reagan on crack, her fists placed on her thin hips in an expression of power like an emaciated Wonder Woman, meant to put terror into the hearts of Martha and me. It only made me laugh.
I leaned back in my chair and lit another Marlboro. "Gladys," I blew smoke in her direction, "I've been waiting for you."
Gladys didn't move.
Martha looked from me to Gladys and then back to me. "I should go check on Ms. Eleanor." She excused herself and hurried past Gladys without a second look.
I stared back at the Bitch, waiting for her to twitch-a standoff worthy of a John Wayne Western. She dropped her hands and walked to the cabinet opposite me, not letting her eyes stray from mine. I smiled at her crumbling to make the first move, and then I took a drag from my cigarette.
"I don't allow smoking in this house," she pronounced.
"This house belongs to Grandma, not you."
"Nevertheless," she leaned against the counter, thin arms folded across her bony body, "you'll do as I ask. Please put out that cigarette and leave."
"Please?" I laughed. "Aren't you polite? But I came here to see you."
"Why?"
I straightened up in the chair, ready for my time in the ring with her. "I want to know why you treat me like a bastard son."
"What?" she huffed. "I do no such thing."
The Bitch had the audacity to deny it. "Cut the crap, Gladys. Ever since you found out I'm gay, you've hated me. You tried to ignore me, and when I wouldn't let you, you banished me to that Lynchburg brainwashing college. You told me never to come home, but here I am. I'm grown, and I accept who I am, what I am. I know myself better than any of your country club friends will ever know themselves if they live to be a hundred." I pushed the chair back and took a step toward her. "You see, I haven't played the role you set up for me. I made my own decisions and paid for the wrong ones. Living on my own, in a place far from the strangling grip of the Harris family, I succeeded by my hard work and knowing my true self."
She pushed herself from the counter, away from me, to a neutral corner by the stove. "You think you know yourself," she spit the words toward me. "I raised you; I've been on this earth longer than you will ever be. Don't come in here, twenty-five years old, and tell me you have all the answers. That arrogance shows you don't know anything."
I walked toward her again, and she glared at me. Grinning at her, I said, "I admit I don't know all the answers. That's why I'm here." My cigarette smoldered in the cereal bowl. "Tell me, Mother." I turned my back to her and took my seat again. "Why do you hate me? Is it the gay thing? That little secret is out."
"Published in the Observer," she slammed her tight little fist against the marble countertop, "like some cheap trailer park trash on one of those horrible talk shows. You bringing Vernon 's campaign into it."
" Vernon 's political aspirations come before your own son?" The second I said it, I knew it wasn't worth asking.
She stalked across the floor as she talked. "Our reputation in this city, this state, is spotless, or it was until you decided to tell the world you like boys."
"Correction, I like men. I like big strapping men, the kind who work in construction. Isn't that perfect, how my family owns a construction business?" Horror contorted her face. "Gee, Mom, do you think Vernon would give me a job in personnel? I could test-drive the workers before they go on site."
"You vulgar, vulgar boy." She started toward me, but I stopped her with a blast of cigarette smoke in her face.
"What, Mother dear? Were you going to hit me?"
Rage burned her thin translucent cheeks. Gladys the Bitch trembled with anger. "Get out!"
I took a deep breath; better to let her lose her temper without me joining. "So, that's it. You hate me because I'm gay. I thought you were more complex than that."
A measure of calm had settled over her; she seemed embarrassed by her outburst. "If you have learned anything at that job of yours, you should know sometimes the greater good of a group is worth the sacrifice of a few."
So, I was the sacrifice. Banished because I didn't fit the mold. Her statement hit me harder than she knew; I wouldn't give her the satisfaction, so I steadied my hands on the table and watched her lean over the counter and push the window up higher to either let out the cigarette smoke or to cool herself down.
"This family is all we have." She turned back to me.
"We?" I asked.
"Yes. Vernon plans for us; the Senate seat is just the beginning. His sons can go even further."
"What does that do for your own children? Tim? Valerie? What does Ruby get from Vernon 's success? Edwina and Roscoe don't see it that way."
She shook her head side to side. "Edwina and Roscoe are imbeciles. They only want what benefits them; they give no thought to the rest of the family."
"But, isn't that what Vernon is doing for his sons? Again, what does it do for the rest of the family?"
Her gaze slapped me like I was missing the entire point. "Status, influence, control, standing, power. Don't you see that as Vernon 's position increases, ours does too? Our family will be regarded in the ranks of the Kennedys, the Bushes; forget the Charlotte families, we've surpassed them, John Belk, Harvey Gantt."
I didn't get it. "What more could you want? All the cousins are rich. None of them, or their children, could spend the money they have. If it's power and influence, isn't it dangerous to push someone like Vernon into that position?"
" Vernon is wiser than you think."
"I hope so." I replayed the meeting I'd had with him in his campaign office. "He strikes me as a bigot, a chauvinist, and a racist. But besides Vernon taking this family to national prominence, how does all of this factor into you sending me away? That's what I want to know. Forget fame and fortune, let's talk about you and me."
Her sharp eyes focused on the chair opposite me. I motioned for her to take the seat. She settled on the cushion like a skinny hawk perching on her nest. "If you want to talk to me, please put out that vile cigarette." Apparently, smoke riled her feathers.
"The fact that I'm gay was published in the newspaper," I stated. "Your biggest fear has seen the light of day-welcome to the world out of the closet."
She glared at me.
I ground out my cigarette. " Vernon did not burst into flames on his soapbox; you are still accepted at the country club; people may whisper behind your back for a few days, but before long, something more sensational will come along." I looked her in her cold gray eyes; I wanted her to admit it, that I'd been sacrificed. "This is why you sent me away at seventeen?"
"You can't begin to understand. The simple fact that you are a homosexual means very little to me."
"What? That's all you've dwelt on for the past eight years."
"No," she interrupted. "That's all you have dwelt on for the past eight years. I have moved on to other things."
"Other things to hate about me?"
"Things you rebel against." Her voice composed, she added, "Things you represent."
We circled back. "Not living the life you set for me?" I asked.
"One day, you'll see I knew what was best for you." She actually seemed to believe what she had just said.
My head ached as if each word she uttered tightened a vise. "You will never know what's best for me, because you don't have a fucking clue as to who I am."
"Don't use that tone with me," she warned. "Remember you are in my house."
"I've been in your house too damn long." I stood. " Vernon will not get elected. Your dreams of being Rose Kennedy will not come true. I know secrets about this family that will make a scandal over a gay son pale by comparison."
She flew from her perch. "Go home, Derek! You shouldn't be here! Go back to San Francisco!"