Miss Emmy and Me

This story covers a variety of time periods including the 1920s through the end of the century and present day. Each of the characters relating her experiences was over the age of 18 when such experiences occurred. The material in italics is the recollections of the ghost of the narrator's great grandmother which she was sharing with the narrator many years after the events occurred.

I was 22 when I first met my great grandmother, Miss Emmy. My strongly traditional Southern family didn't talk about her very much. She was our family's black sheep. She had been dead for a long time, so I was actually meeting Miss Emmy's ghost. But meeting her that warm, steamy, July night twenty years ago changed my life.

Ghost you may ask, questioning my credibility before I've even begun the story, but ghosts weren't a big deal in the family in which I grew up. We lived in a big old Ante-Bellum mansion on a couple of thousand acres of prime bottom land down the river a bit from Greenville, Mississippi. We had values that hadn't changed or been seriously questioned for generations, and we had money, lots of money. In addition to the farm we owned a small bank, the local TV station, a radio station, and the county newspaper, plus a car dealership, a farm equipment franchise, and a tire store. Basically everything you needed to run a local economy in Mississippi. I can't say we owned the local politicians, but . . . well, you know.

But the land was the core of the enterprise. The family had been born there, lived there, and died there for more generations than I can count. We even had our own cemetery up on the 'Hill' behind the house. It was generally accepted in the family that the ghosts of various of our ancestors would wander down from the Hill from time to time and visit—mostly just to check up on us, making sure the family values were being maintained and the family's position in the community was still respected as it had been in their day (whatever century that might have been in). Yes, we had ghosts, but they weren't dangerous, and we all grew up knowing they would be coming by to visit from time to time.

The family values, you might ask? Pretty much the usual for a family in the southern aristocracy—work hard, go to church, obey the commandments, earn and command respect in the community, and above all else don't ever sell the land, the land that was the source of our wealth and our power in the community. There were also some unspoken values, like don't marry beneath your station, make sure the right politicians are elected, and . . . well you know, the usual rural southern values about race.

But Miss Emmy was not among the ghosts that came down the Hill. She died giving birth to my grandmother and by the time I was old enough to ask questions about my great grandmother all I could get from the family was, "She went abroad and died young." I did learn enough to find out that she had returned from Paris before my grandmother was born, but there was never any mention of my great grandfather, so I had always assumed he had stayed in Paris. As I said, she was the black sheep. She went abroad and came home pregnant and without a husband. That did not match the family values.

I had just finished my senior year at Vanderbilt when I met Miss Emmy. In Miss Emmy's day the family values didn't include sending female members of the family off to college, but by the time I came along it was accepted, so long as I went to some approved southern university like Vanderbilt and didn't study anything too radical. I had double majored in English Literature and Art History. Those were considered "safe majors" by the family. Not at all the same as though I had gone to Berkeley for four years and studied feminist theory.

I had seen other of the family ghosts on numerous occasions, so I wasn't all that shocked when Miss Emmy appeared in my bedroom as I was preparing for bed. Like the other ghosts I had met she kind of shimmered around the edges. If you weren't used to ghosts you might think there was something wrong with your vision, but I knew better. Also their habit of appearing and disappearing into thin air could be a little unnerving until you got used to it.

"Hello Lisa," she said. "It's so nice to meet you."

"Hi. . . . uh . . . which one of my relatives are you?" I responded.

She smiled. "Oh I guess you wouldn't know me," she said. "I don't come down the Hill very often. I'm your great grandmother."

"Miss Emmy?"

She smiled and nodded. Unlike most of the ghosts that came down the Hill to visit she looked young and very pretty. Her thick, dark, lustrous hair was cut very short and curled around her face in a way I thought quite attractive. She was wearing a pale blue dress (a frock they would have called it in her day) that hung from narrow straps, strings really, and fell straight to a hem well above her knees. She was thin and had a moderate bust that the frock showed to her advantage. Her hips were relatively narrow. She looked a lot like a 1920's flapper.

I had been preparing for bed when she arrived so I sat nearly naked on the edge of my bed staring at her. No one I knew had ever met Miss Emmy. I started to reach for my robe that was lying on the edge of the bed, but Miss Emmy spoke up. "No need for that. It's warm in here and It's not like I haven't seem nudity before."

I said, "Okay," and left the robe where it lay. Then I just sat there, nearly naked and silent, waiting to see what Miss Emmy wanted. In my experience the family ghosts didn't come down the Hill without an agenda.

After a long silence she spoke up, "I'm sure they have all told you terrible things about me."

"Just that you went to Paris and came home pregnant without a husband, and that you died in childbirth when my grandmother was born."

"Well, that's all pretty much true," she said. What they didn't tell you was why I went to Paris and how much fun I had there. They also left out the part about my marriage when I was 18.

"So why did you go to Paris?" I asked.

"The family sent me. They were afraid, no sure, that I was going to embarrass them. By the time I was 22 I was a bit of slut. I had married right after I finished high school. As an 18 year old virgin I had no idea what I was getting into. I just went ahead with the marriage my parents arranged for me—to a forty-five year old plantation owner from the next county to the south of us. He was a drunk and he liked to beat women, especially the ones he was married too (I was his third, the first two having died under, I later learned, somewhat mysterious circumstances). Beyond our wedding night he showed no interest in sex with me whatsoever, preferring the whores in the cathouse down on the river. Since I was being ignored, I took up having sex with others—first one of his brothers, who seduced me (and was my first real introduction to sex, my wedding night being a bit of a bust when my new husband passed out), and then with a couple of the plantation's field hands.

One night my husband came home drunk and started in on me with his belt and his fists. I gave him a push and he tripped, hitting his head on a table as he was going down. It killed him. It was all hushed up as an accident, but somehow a will magically appeared which left everything to the brother who had seduced me. He made it clear that he wanted nothing further to do with me now that he owned the plantation. I came home with nothing but a car and a few clothes. After a couple of months at home my family sent me off to finishing school in Paris. "

Wow, I thought to myself. No wonder the family won't talk about her.

"But Paris," she continued. "My god, it was such a wild place in the 20s. Lots of parties, lots of booze, and sex. Oh my god yes, there was sex with just about anyone you took a liking to. Paris was such a fabulous place then."

"Were you with all the famous ex-pat writers and painters?" I asked, thinking back to my college classes.

"Some of them. They were okay, but they were a little intense about their work. I'll tell you though, that Zelda Fitzgerald was sure a nut case," she said, shaking her head. "She was such fun when she was in her manic phase, but when she was depressed she was a real downer."

"And her husband, Scott. Did you know him?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh for sure. Maybe I slept with him. I don't really know. There were parties that I never could remember the details of. Scotty was usually around so . . . maybe."

"But for real decadence," she continued "you had to get to know the remnants of the French aristocracy. Oh those people had really dirty minds and they reveled in their decadence."

"So who was my great grandfather? Was he one of those decadent Frenchmen?"

She shrugged her shoulders again. "Probably. There were lots of candidates. I was a very busy girl," she said with a smile "Oh, it was such fun after growing up in this strangled culture." Her voice assumed a sour tone on the last two words.

I didn't respond, but the way I raised my head and looked up at her asked what she meant by the end of the sentence.

"Oh you should know girl. You've been off to college and you know there are more open cultures than we have around here. This place." She gritted her teeth. "It's all about who your family is and whether you come from the right folks, never mind asking what you value or what you can do. And race! For god's sakes, we have that so screwed up. You would think that after Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and the others got through kicking our ass over that issue we would have figured out a better way to do things, but no, not us. We just cling to our 'family values.' And whatever you do don't sell the land. It makes me just as mad today as it did when they sent me off to Paris all those years ago."

"I see," I said in shock. I had never heard anyone in the family question the 'family values.' But I realized I was still wrapped in the rural southern culture. I had to admit to myself that my time at Vanderbilt wasn't exactly like four years at Berkeley.

"Never mind," she said. "I didn't really come down here to rant. I wanted to talk to you about what you are going to do next. I heard you're going to get married?"

Ahh, so that's her agenda, I thought. She wants to make sure I'm marrying properly. "That's true," I said. "I'm going to marry Richard Allen. His family lives up in Bolivar County. We . . ."

"Oh fuck," she interrupted. "You're going to marry a good Southern boy who shares our family values. His family probably owns a couple of thousand acres of good bottom land up there in Bolivar county and he has never been farther from home than, le'me guess, Vanderbilt."

"No. He's at LSU."

"Oh my, how liberal. And what does he major in? Probably phys. ed. Or what is it they call it today? Kinesiology? Don't tell me you're going to marry a dumb jock."

"No. He's majoring in Ag Econ," I said, beginning to sound a little hot myself. He has one more year to go. We'll get married next June, right after he graduates.

"Ah, so you've bagged the chosen one, the son that's been tagged by his family to take over the running of the enterprise for the next generation and to preserve their set of 'family values.' Nice catch. But is it a marriage or a merger?" She was really rolling now. "Are you going to move over to Bolivar county and live with him in his family's Southern Gothic pile. You must be, because he can't come here. Your brother Bruce is the chosen one for this family. No room for two chosen ones in the same Southern Gothic pile. I s'pose his mommy and daddy will still be there, but they've approved you already, or things would never have gotten this far. Really, have you thought about living under his mommy's thumb for the next twenty years or so? Richey, that's his name isn't it, runs the farm, well the overseer really runs the farm, and Richey checks in between bird hunting trips, and then you and Richey go to the country club for dinner with the family three nights a week, the ones when his father is sober enough to be presentable, while his mother tells you how to raise your children, what clothes to wear, how to look after Richey, and what ladies clubs to join. Oh fuck. I can just imagine it."

We sat in silence, glaring at each other for what felt like a really long time.

Finally Emmy spoke. "Oh I'm sorry. I don't talk to family very often and sometimes I get a little carried away. If you're happy that's all that matters. But remember there is still a lot of world out there you haven't seen, and waiting to see Paris until you and Richey are 55, the kids are off in college, and his parents planted in their version of the Hill, is really not the best way to see Paris."

I smiled. "No, I guess not, but I am committed now." I held out my hand, like Southern girls do, showing Miss Emmy the engagement ring I was wearing.

Emmy smiled. "Nice rock. Tiffaney? You've a real catch there."

Without pausing to let me respond, she jumped ahead. "But let me ask you something, Lisa. Is this Richey any good in bed? Can he make the earth move when he fucks you? You did read Hemingway while you were getting that English degree, didn't you?"

"What?"

"Oh don't play the good little Southern girl with me. You know what I mean. It's important. You know that. Sex is one of the really good things in life, and you want to make sure you are going to get plenty of great sex in return for playing the sweet Southern bell to his aristocratic family. Once you're there, your freedom to run around and sample the alternatives is over."

I stared in shock.

She shook her head. "You haven't tried him have you. You're buying a pig in a poke just because that granddaughter of mine is telling you it's the right thing to do. That's the worst thing about dying in child birth. I didn't get to raise her mother or her up right."

"No. I haven't," I said. "And I wouldn't. Richey and I are waiting until we're married."

"Oh fuck." She looked like she was going to be ill. "Don't tell me. You're still a virgin? I tried that business of marrying as a virgin and it didn't work out very well."

I blushed and looked down. "Well not exactly."

"Oh?" Her look brightened. Have you been down in the bottom screwing the field hands? I did that you know, but not until I was married to a drunk that liked to beat me. That's why the family sent me to Paris, for 'finishing school' they called it, but it was really just to get me out of here before I embarrassed them anymore."

"Oh god no. Nothing like that. That's . . . " I shook my head unable to express my shock at the notion of interracial sex.

"Shit!" she said, "That's another thing that pisses me off about the 'family values'. It's always been okay for the guys in this family to go down there and fuck the women, but if one of our women should want some of that big black cock down there. Oh no. That was just not going to happen."

I was starring in silence. I had never heard anyone in the family talk in such away.

"Okay," she said, having finished her tirade on race relations, "So who did you do? Some guy after a drunken fraternity party?"

"No, no. It was . . . Well my roommate my senior year at Vanderbilt had this . . . this thing. They probably didn't have them when you were young. And she talked me into trying it. . . "

"You mean a dildo?" she interrupted.

I looked down at my lap in embarrassment. "Yes." I whispered.

Oh that's nothing to be embarrassed about. We had them when I was young. They were made out of smoothly finished hardwood. But I started younger than you."

"Really, how young?"

"Don't ask. I think I've shocked you enough. Just let me say that when you discover you are married to a man who doesn't want to have sex with you, you get desperate after a while."

"Oh."

"But how was it? Was it good?"

"Mmmm. Yes," I responded. "It had this vibrator in it and oh god, I thought I was just going to explode."

"A vibrator, eh. I've heard about those. We didn't have those. But still, I guess it would be good enough for getting that virginity stuff out of the way, but not like spending an hour or two with one of the darkies though.

"What?" I exclaimed in shock again.

"Oh, is that another one of those words we can't use anymore?"

"Yes!"

"Well, what do you call them?"

"I just call them 'people'."

"Oh I see." She thought for a moment. "Okay, I think that's better. Just 'people.' I like that. We should have done that years ago. But tell me have you ever screwed any of those 'people'?"

"Miss Emmy," I said, sounding cross. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"I hope you're my great granddaughter, but I' m getting worried that you're more like my daughter than I had hoped."

I laughed. Miss Chrissy is a little stiff, isn't she? (Miss Chrissy was my grandmother)

"Yah think?"

I was coming to like my great grandmother more. "So can you tell me," I asked her. "How did you work up the nerve to go down and do it with the . . .?"

"The darkies?" she said, finishing my sentence.

"I didn't say that. I don't use that word."

"I know but you meant it."

"But tell me about it?" I said, ignoring the linguistics.

"Well it was my sister that got me into that."

"Miss Janey?" I asked. Miss Janey had pretty much raised my grandmother after Miss Emmy died in childbirth.

No, oh god no, not Janey. She was one of the worst prudes this family's ever brought up. I had another sister, Miss Shannon."

"Never heard of her."

"The family never speaks of her. She got knocked up by one of the field hands and they ran off to Chicago. There was a race to the lawyer's office to cut her out of everyone's will."

"Oh."

"Anyhow, after I figured out how worthless my new husband was, I took to fooling around with some no count white trash from down river, actually two or three of them, but not all at once. Shannon told me that was dumb. If I was going to do that kind of thing and take those risks, I should be doing it with one of . . . uh, what did you say? . . . "Those people?"

"Right. Got it. One of 'those people,' but why?"

"Shannon said it was because they could fuck a lot better than any poor white trash from down river. They had bigger dicks according to Shannon, and that, in my opinion, turned out to be true. Let me tell you great granddaughter of mine, bigger dicks matter. They're not everything, but they're a good start."

"So you had sex with . . . those people?" I said with my eyes wide.

"Absolutely. You need to try it some time. In fact, unless you're in a hurry to go to sleep, let me tell you about it—I mean the details."

"Uh . . . Okay." This was a little weird. Here I was sitting nearly naked with my great grandmother's ghost and she was about to tell me the erotic details of her interracial sex experiences of more than fifty years ago.

"Let's see," she said as she thought about what she wanted to tell me. "Oh yeah that time was really fun. I had just turned 24 and had moved back up here after being run off my late husband's plantation. I was palling around with another gal my age named Julie. She was mad at her fiancé who had been cheating on her. Wow. That was quite a night."

Now you just lean back against that bedstead and get comfy. You're going to like this story. In fact, since you're nearly naked feel free to do yourself, I mean if you are enjoying the story."

What, I thought! My great grandmother's ghost wants me to masturbate in front of her.

"In front of you?" I asked in shock.

Not to worry. I'm going to disappear, but I'll be telling this story inside your head so you can experience it just as I remember it."

With that she shimmered a bit more than she had been and then I was . . .

. . .wearing a light weight dress and walking barefoot down a dirt track leading to an old sharecropper shack. It was nearing midnight on a warm June evening with a full moon and a light breeze that was blowing warm, moist Mississippi air. I was naked beneath the dress and the warm air felt delicious.