Albatross
Loosing my Burberry
necktie, I rose from my glass topped mahogany desk that spanned the middle of
my office on the twelfth floor of Hearst Towers in Manhattan. It had been a day hampered by much
irritation. Thank goodness, there were
no more appointments for today. Walking
to the window that covered the whole side of the room, I looked at tall towers
of other buildings. I stared at my
reflection in the glass. Wearing a Hugo
Boss suit, a mark of success, my face was lined with forty-three years of worry.
I ran my hand thru my thinning grey hair
and noticed my pallid complexion from years of indoor living.
The ringing of the telephone shook me out of daydreaming. “Mr. Thompson,” my secretary, Sara, spoke
over the intercom. "You have a call from a Mr. Willie Thompson in Sharkie,
Mississippi."
My hands were shaking as I reached for the telephone. My voice
sounded hoarse as I said, "Willie".
I hadn’t talked to my brother, Willie, in ten years.
“Louis, they found him”, Willie blurred.
“Found him”, I knew Willie meant our father, Roy.
“How? It’s been years.”
“The people that got the old place were digging the well
deeper. They found his bones.”
Memories flashed in my mind. Willie and I had to haul
water from a nearby spring using the old gray mare, Sally, pulling a one-horse wagon.
The water in the well was black and unusable.
“Willie, calm down. Stop crying. There’s
no proof. He was drunk and fell in”.
“Louis, the old boards were there. Someone had to cover
the well after he fell.”
“Mama could have. We never touched him. He just fell.
Let the county bury him as a pauper. God knows, you can’t afford a funeral and I
don’t want him buried by mama.”
“Louis, why don’t you come home?”
“Willie, I just can’t deal with it". Replacing the
phone without saying goodbye, I felt my chest tighten and my knees starting to
shake. I could feel the blackness and sadness of my soul. I knew terror along with Willie, fourteen
year old, Mary, and mama as darkness settled over the desolate land.
The house was built in an open field. Daddy had built it
leaving cracks in the floors and inside walls leaving peep holes between the rooms.
Many nights, I had watched while daddy beat mama. Around the back of the house, a pile of burnt
cans and broken glass made the garbage pile.
Small bushes behind it were used for excrement. Pages of a Sears-Roebuck catalog littered the
grass. A run-down stable housed Bessie,
the milk cow. A lean-to beside the
stable was used for a corncrib. Between
the house and stable, boards were over an old well. Closing my eyes, I could see images as if it
was yesterday.
The whisky bottle made
a crashing sound as it shattered on the woodpile. I remember hearing daddy yell, "Boy, you
best hurry with that wood or I’ll beat the hide off you." Walking hurriedly with a load of wood, I
heard him yell, "Don't slam the damn door”.
Entering
the kitchen, I saw Willie trying to hide under the dining table made of rough
boards. His six-year-old body was coiled
in a tight bundle. Mama wearing a faded
dress was trying to start a fire in the stove with one hand and holding the
front of the dress together with the other hand. Most of the buttons down the front of the
dress was missing. Her dark hair was
over her shoulders as she looked at me.
Her facial expression showed bewilderment. I knew she was silently begging me not to made
daddy angry.
There was never enough food. The four of us had to wait while daddy ate his
fill. Sometimes if there was a little
extra, mama would hide it for me, Willie, and Mary. I was twelve and gave most
of mine to Willie.
Mama didn’t know what happened at home while she
worked. She hitchhiked to and from a
waitress job. Most days, after work she
had to go to her garden scrounging for food.
She never asked if we went to school.
We knew volunteering information would cause trouble. She thought all of us went to school. Daddy made Mary stay home most days. When we got home, her eyes would be puffy
from crying and she would stay away from mama claiming a lot of homework. She would just look at my books.
In March, Willie and I got home from
school to find daddy passed out, lying in the floor wearing only boxer
shorts. Mary was gone. Many times, Willie and I had talked about killing
daddy. Many nights he would rant and rave
about religion. He would preach fire and
damnation quoting Bible scripture long into the night. No one slept those nights. Mama would just smile her cowered smile saying
he was the envy of Billy Graham. Seeing
mama so sad about Mary, we knew we had to have a plan. He was too big for us to face.
Willie and I decided the next time he wanted to beat us
we would run toward the well. We would take the boards off and he would fall
in. The well was about six feet
round. We dropped rocks into it to guess
the depth. It was deep enough. After drinking all day, daddy would beat us
after we got home from school. He didn’t
need a reason. Any object close by was
used as a weapon. Willie couldn’t walk
for two weeks after being beaten by a singletree off the wagon. Mama never
stood up for us. She was afraid of a
beating but he always hit her so the bruises wouldn’t be visual. We never ran from him. Running would only cause him to beat
harder. We planned to run from him the
next time he was to beat us. Finding him
in the kitchen drunk, I eased out the back to uncover the well. Minutes later, he yelled at Willie,
"Come back here!" Willie
sprinted through the back door. .I
yelled "Run Willie!" We both
ran for the well. We waited for him to
catch us as he staggered toward the hole.
Both of us dodged the well but he staggered into the hole. He screamed as he reached for air. If the fall didn’t kill him, he would drown in
the black water. In the silence, Willie
and I looked at each other. Neither spoke as we walked toward the barn to start
our chores. This would be our
secret. When mama got home, we told her
we hadn’t seen daddy. Deep down inside, we were both surprised at what we had
done.
Days passed into winter.
Mama wondered what happened to daddy. She knew he wouldn’t leave without
money or liquor. At night, she cried
about Mary. I wondered if she knew
Willie and I lied to her about daddy.
We stayed in the house suffering the winter. There were no quilts for the beds. Willie and I piled clothes, newspapers, and
magazines on our bed. We had an old blue, air force coat that mama put on our
bed. Many nights, she slept in a chair
adding wood to the fire in the Franklin heater.
Times were hard as we grew into our manhood. Willie joined the army at eighteen. After
three months in Vietnam, he was shipped home minus a leg. I was attending Ole Miss on a football
scholarship and received a deferment.
Drinking and visiting bars was my pastime. One night, I looked into a go-go girl’s eyes
as men poked dollar bills inside her tights.
Recognition flashed in our eyes.
It was Mary. We didn’t speak. I
never visited that bar again. Guilt
overcame me and I wished we had killed daddy before Mary left home.
I can move trains, planes, and cargo
ships all over the world. I am CEO of
Hearst Industries, the biggest shipping organization in the world. I am responsible for the Emma Maersk,
Wal-Mart’s transpacific ship from China to American markets. My power is with graphs, timetables and ocean
levels. I don’t have the power to fight
my demons. I can still see him damning
the devil between swallows of corn liquor.
Removing
a flask from my desk drawer, I take a big swallow, replace the flask and look
out the window at Manhattan before leaving my office making my way through the
red-carpeted foray to the parking garage. I would go home and drink myself in a
stupor.
Early morning would find me in
the glass windowed skyscraper taking telephone calls and keeping track of
vessels on five oceans and airways hoping I wouldn’t hear from Willie.
Today the demons would be quiet but tonight, I
would reach for the bottle.
_____________________
Author: Revia Perrigin