Southern Heritage

Twice in the night we awakened to satisfy the needs of the other or of us both with soft moans of pleasure that we laughingly tried to hide from a now sleeping neighborhood.

"You sure?' I asked as I pulled the car over to the curb a block from the house. "I mean we're going to tell them today anyway, what difference does it make?"

"A lot of difference. We pull up at your house together we may not get to have our say. Now you go on. I'll be there just as quick."

I pulled away from the curb hating to see her in the mirror, but I also knew she was right.

I saw the front door is open as I pulled into the driveway and took the car around back. I could almost envision Moma going to look out the screen every few minutes to see if I had gotten home. Years spent away fighting in the war, yet she still worried if I stayed out all night like I was a little kid.

I entered the house through the kitchen door; I could hear the front screen opening as I crossed the white and black tiles.

"You Nigger Whore!" My father's voice nearly shook the windows out the frames.

As I quickly stepped into the hall I saw Maryloo backing away from my father as he was screaming at her.

I saw several things then in a very few seconds. It was a way of looking at things that I had not felt settle over me since leaving Vietnam.

My Mom was by the door to the TV room, leaning on the door frame. I could hear the TV playing behind her. I saw her face was splotchy from crying.

My beautiful sister Cora was sitting on the steps. Her hand was on the rail as she was about to pull herself up to her feet. Her mouth was a perfect 'O' of surprise as she saw me.

My Father was advancing towards Maryloo. He was my true focus point, all the rest was set to one side. Noticed but dismissed. The thunder of his hate-filled words as he screams at her. The white-knuckled grip of his hands around the black leather bible in his left hand, it's little tassel swinging wildly. The metal blue of his service revolver in his right hand. The gun he carried into Germany and to the Pacific...pointed at the woman I loved!

"You whore of Babylon, seducer of Satan! I gave your filthy kind a good paying job and you do this! You..."

My father and I crashed together, tearing through the metal screen and wood door frame. We spilled out onto the front porch. I have no memory of crossing the living room; I must have done it at a full run. The force of that carried the two of us past Maryloo across the porch and down in a tumbled pile by the steps. I heard my mother and sister screaming as I felt my elbow dig into the gravel.

I turned enough to catch my fathers right arm and pushed it to the ground but even as I did I saw it was empty. I was noticing this even as he was starting to try and turn himself under me.

My breath left me a second later as Tommy slammed into my side, and he and I tumbled off our father.

Attacked from my blind side, my reactions were instinctive. I felt his arm closing around my neck and I began to lose it a bit. His weeks of boot camp training had kicked in. I could tell in a rational part of my mind that he was doing what his drill sergeant taught him, things that can be very lethal!

But my training was from a place a whole lot more lethal.

I heard Tommy's scream of pain before I was even aware I was doing anything to him. One second he was holding me around my throat the next he's clutching at his face and screaming while I had rolled over onto him.

"Get off him! Get off him god damn it!"

My fathers work boot caught me in the ribs with a force that belittled his age. I rolled with it as much as I could but I still felt the snap of a bone. I made myself go from the ground to my knees to my feet without pause. I'm in a half crouch when Tommy started to get up.

He was clawing at his left side even as he came up onto his feet. Dad's hand was helping him up. I watched the both of them and tried not to clutch my side and give away the injury.

The flash of metal from Tommy's side, the dark flat blade of his marine K-bar brought my thought into instant focus.

I felt it settle over me then, like an old worn jacket. My eyes slid from the blade to his chest. Part of me was following his feet as well. I was watching for the step. That one balancing step that would signal he was about to move towards me with the knife.

The step that would be my brother's last.

My breath calmed.... my hands steadied...my heart beat slowed.

The sound of Dad's 45 was as loud as thunder!

Out the corner of my eye, I could not look away from the bare knife, I saw Maryloo walking down the front steps. The gun, it's barrel smoking, looked ridiculously large in her delicate hands. She slowly moved till she was standing next to me. She pointed with her left hand towards the front porch. That hand shook but the one with the gun was steady.

The rabid dog with a stick comes to mind.

My father moves forward a step or two till he is standing between Tommy and Maryloo.

"You can't shoot me, bitch. You kill a white man in this state.... they will electrocute your black ass!"

He started to step forwards some more but stopped when Maryloo's off hand came around to help steady the big gun between his eyes.

"Your.... white ass.... won't be there to see it," she said with a dreadful coldness to her voice.

Cora and Moma came off the porch at that moment and took father's arms. I watched them pulling on him till he lets himself be led away.

Tommy was looking at me with blood running freely down the side of his head from his left ear. He slowly lifted the K-bar till it pointed at my face.

Jenny had him then, pulling him up the porch and through the door ahead of father.

My father shrugged off the women's hands at the door and looked away from Maryloo for the first time. His eyes settled on me.

The look of loathing disgust on his face will live in my memories forever.

The door slammed shut on his last words to me... they echo up out the past alone with the sound of glass breaking.

***

My aged hand turns off the car, as my eyes go to my left hand still on the wheel. The worn gold band, scratched and dull from a lifetime of hard work catches my attention easily. I take a deep breath and turn to the passenger seat. My hand moves over and my fingers curl around her darker ones. The metal of her ring is a cool feeling under my fingers.

"Maryloo? We're here." I give her hand a squeeze.

Those beautiful eyes open slowly in their nest of tiny wrinkles. She looks around and then freeing her hand, lifts her glasses up off her chest on their little gold chain.

"Oh...we're home."

I look at the familiar yet unknown faces that look out the window towards us.

"Yeah," I say with a sigh.

I open the door and fish out my cane. The old knee gives me the familiar pain as I push my way out and to my feet.

When I open Maryloo's door, her hand takes mine. Her eyes look up at me through those gold frame glasses. I see the twinkle in her eyes.

"Don't you be fretting now, Willy boy. It gonna be just fine."

I smile as I help her out. It troubles me to see her getting so frail, but I know that those ten years between us that meant so little once will come to soon mean a lot more.

"Maryloo!"

Turning towards the porch I see my sister Cora coming towards us in a hurry. She doesn't quite skip down the steps like she once did but she moves well for a woman in her fifties.

As my sister and Maryloo hug I walk around to the back of the car and open the trunk. The towels on top of the pie boxes are still warm.

I'm about to lift out the first box when I stop. My pulse jumps to a heavy thunder and my hands start to shake as I watch my brother's ghost step out the front door. I slowly calm myself as he crosses the porch and comes down the steps. I realize as my pulse slows that I'm looking at my brother's youngest son. The one named for my father.

He crosses the yard to stand in front of me. His actions direct and purposeful.

The crisp BDU's he's wearing carry old remembered smells, old memory triggers that threaten to bring tears to my eyes. I lick my lips as his eyes settle on my face.

"So you're Uncle William. Dad told me about you."

My eyes are on level with his as his hand moves from his waist quickly towards me.

"He said to give you this."

I look down blinking at the white envelope he's holding out before me. I take it with hands that shake a bit.

"I'll help you with that, Aunt Cora."

I watch him take the pie boxes from my sister and start towards the porch with them. Cora has Maryloo's arm and doesn't look like she's going to turn it loose any time soon.

When I open the envelope I pull out a piece of notebook paper, the side a ragged mess from being torn out a spiral. My bother's scrawl covers half the page.

"Dear William."

I blink and look again to be sure I read that right.

"Dear William, It feels strange for a former Marine to be saying this but I am a coward. Truly a coward. I spent many long years of my life following what others had to say, without ever having the courage to do what I felt was right and needed done."

I swallow back tears as my eyes jump ahead.

"I was wrong. I could never in this life find the courage to look you in the face and tell you this. If this letter comes to you by my son's hand you know I never did. I'm sorry, brother. I am sorry for the words I have used about you. Both to your face and behind it. I regret now what I called Maryloo for so long. Please ask her if she will forgive me for being stupid, she always did when I was a child. I know from our sister that you have had a good life. That you have sons grown to manhood, and a daughter you gave away in marriage. I never met them or the grandson I hear you have. I wish I had. The Lord blessed you my brother. He did, his eyes and hand were upon you the whole of your life, and for one reason. You saw beyond the color of skin to the beauty he placed in the warmth of her heart."

Silent tears roll unchecked down my cheeks as my hands tremble.

"You were always braver than me. I ask you now to use a bit of that courage. Use it to forgive me. To please forgive a fool for foolish words, my brother. Love Tommy."

I slowly lower the letter to my side. It doesn't mater; I can no longer read the words. I can't see my brother's writing through the tears that cloud my eyes.

"Willy boy!"

Swallowing, I wipe my face and close the trunk of the car.

Maryloo stands on the front porch wiping her hands on a towel. The years fall away from her as I look.

"Willy boy, you're letting Thanksgiving dinner get cold in here." She smiles and waves me towards the porch. "Time to come home."

I smile and wave to show her I heard. Leaning on my cane, I walk up the sidewalk towards the house. Towards the door.

"Yeah it is."

*

( I would like to thank dampanties for her work as my editor. Any mistakes you saw are still on me.)