The Good Morrow Read online

  Chapter 3

  I

  The Flamingo Club was a hole in wall whose neon signed worked about as well as its toilet, neither of which was essential to its mission of ministering to the spiritual needs of the dregs of Charleston society with nothing but the cheapest and certifiably toxic liquor. Bubba removed his hat as he entered the establishment and immediately regretted the gesture since it only made more apparent the fact that he had no business being there at this or any other hour. He looked around for a booth or table in a dark corner, but they all seemed occupied by shapes which gave no sign of wanting company, especially if it came from the wrong part of town. In fact the only vacant table was right beneath a spotlight that refused to stay pointed at the center attraction.

  On a platform that was just high enough to be a problem if one were too drunk to stay within its bounds, two bleary-eyed musicians were plugging into the amps and preparing for their next set. Each had hopefully seen better days, and they moved with all due deliberation. A menacing buzz shook the glassware as the guitar player put a jack in one amp. He shook his guitar and then hit the strings generating a piercing screech followed by howling feedback. Kicking the amplifier seemed to cure the feedback, and he hit another lick on the strings that might have qualified as a musical riff had it been reduced by 40 decibels. As he leaned over to turn up the volume on the amp, the bass player began what could only be described as an artillery assault on the entire district. The guitar player took one more swig from the bottle in his hip pocket and then launched a rocket attack designed to cauterize the soul and scrape off any remaining nerve endings not just in the ears but in the inner reaches of the heart.

  When Bubba had adjusted to the glare of the spotlight and stuffed the remains of a paper napkin in his ears, he became aware of a third figure on the stage, a kid who would have looked out of place even if he had not been wearing a Confederate officer’s tunic. He was hunched over with his back to the audience and a microphone in one hand. He appeared to cup the microphone to his mouth with both hands and all of a sudden the most godawful wailing began competing with the noise of the guitar. Bubba realized that this third wave of the attack was somehow related to a phenomenon in a parallel universe caused by blowing air into an harmonica.

  As the harmonica player began to get into the grove, he turned slowly and moved around the stage without opening his eyes. When the electrical system seemed on the verge of a complete meltdown, he yanked the harmonica away from his mouth and produced a small, leather-bound volume from his coat pocket. Holding the book open to shield his face from view, he began screaming into the microphone:

  “And oft in the hills of Habersham,

  And oft in the valleys of Hall,

  The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone

  Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,

  And many a luminous jewel lone

  – Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,

  Ruby, garnet and amethyst –

  Made lures with the lights of streaming stone

  In the cliffs of the hills of Habersham,

  In the beds of the valleys of Hall.”

  Bubba’s face, which had been contorted in pain as he cupped his hands over his ears in self-defense, began to melt. His eyes widened with a combination of disbelief and delight, and the smile with which he had always acknowledged the great incongruities of the world reclaimed its birthright. He had found his quarry.

  The book Foster used to shield himself from the glare was a first edition copy of the poems of Sidney Lanier. It might well have come from Bellevue. The sword strapped around his waist was obviously stolen from V.M.I.; the T-shirt and jeans he was wearing underneath the officer’s tunic could have come from any dumpster.

  “But oh, not the hills of Habersham,

  And oh, not the valleys of Hall

  Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.

  Downward the voices of Duty call–

  Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,

  The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,

  And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,

  And the lordly main from beyond the plain

  Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,

  Calls through the valleys of Hall.”

  II

  Foster’s mind had long since abandoned the illusion that life had any continuity or coherence except in those rare and fleeting states induced by poetry and music. So far as he could tell experiences bubbled up from the depths in discreet moments which burst and disappeared as soon as they hit the surface. What bubbled up next was just as likely to be a scene from his childhood or a vision of Light-Horse Harry Lee as it was a clear and distinct perception of the saltshaker on the kitchen counter. The figure who now appeared smiling before him could very well be the Archangel Michael, but there was something about him that pulled Foster out of his trance.

  “Bubba?”

  Bubba acknowledged the greeting with a gentle nod, fully aware of the delicacy of the situation despite the ear-splitting cacophony engulfing them. He could see Foster starting to lose his balance as a flood of self-consciousness swept away the debris of his ecstasy and left him spinning in a whirlpool of mundane thoughts.

  III

  Foster and Bubba staggered out the backdoor of The Flamingo Club into the alley. Foster walked a few steps supporting himself with one hand against the wall and then sank to a crouch. Bubba stood above him for a moment and then realized the only polite thing to do was to crouch next to him in a spot normally reserved for a garbage can.

  “The Old Man died last month.”

  Bubba said it gently but directly as though he knew he had better cash in on Foster’s attention while he had it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He left the place to you.”

  This didn’t make it through before the gate closed. Foster was running through the weeds barefoot trying to forget about the Old Man standing at the top of the stairs shaking his walking stick.

  “Actually what the will said was that the plantation was yours on the condition that you let all the relatives live there.”

  Once he was safely hidden in the bushes, and The Old Man retreated to do battle on another front; Foster turned to look again at his comrade in arms.

  “He left the place to me?”

  “Yes.”

  Foster was afraid he might start bleeding internally. He wasn’t sure what Bubba wanted from him.

  “Why on earth?”

  “Far be it from me…”

  Bubba’s laugh was familiar enough to be reassuring, and Foster began to feel it was not Bubba he had to fear.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Give it some thought.”

  Foster responded as though he were surrounded by a chorus of grammar school teachers telling him how to behave. He was determined to stand up to them.

  “No. I need to be free. I can’t be tied down to material possessions and mundane concerns. I have a calling.”

  Bubba knew better than to argue this point.

  “I went duck hunting the other day with Sam Magill – or at least I pretended I was hunting ducks. I never could stand to shoot the poor things, but I love being out in the marshes at sunrise.”

  Foster realized he was still holding the book of poetry.

  “You should read Sidney Lanier’s poem ‘Sunrise’.”

  “I probably have, and I’d much rather look at the real thing than read a poem about it. You should see the lilies and the azalea out by Taylor’s point. I think we’re in for a spectacular summer.”

  Foster wandered through the swamps around Bellevue. The sound of frogs and katydids and whippoorwills and the gentle lapping of water seeped through the crack caused by the image of bright pink azalea. He grabbed the first bucket he could find to bail them out.

  “It can’t be any better than the one after I graduated from Woodbury.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bubb
a knew for once in his life he had chosen the right lure to cast into the pre-dawn murkiness.

  Foster felt himself drifting into a cathedral of cypress trees and Spanish moss where time revolved slowly without any interference from mankind.

  “’Course it can’t compare to this place.”

  Foster was starting to feel lost in the swamp. He wished he could find some ground to stand on.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I guess not. I would think that a poet would want to surround himself with natural beauty.”

  “Not all life is beautiful.”

  “Judging from the places I’ve been trying to track you down, I’d say you were expertly qualified to make that judgment.”

  As Foster handed Bubba the book of poetry.

  “Here.”

  Their eyes met, and Foster became the five-year-old boy who loved to fetch things for the kind soul who listened to his prayers every night and never uttered a harsh word. He longed for Bubba to pat him on the back or rub his hand around in his hair.

  “I guess I could use a change of scene.”

  IV

  The Dixie Diner had been a truck stop before they built the Interstate five miles away. Believing that tradition was more important than profit margin, it continued to stay open 24 hours a day. On this particular night at 4:00 AM, it was filled only with the smell of burnt lard and the good gospel sounds of the Stanley Brothers giving their all in a classic rendition of “A Voice From On High”:

  “I hear a voice callin’,

  It must be our Lord.

  It’s coming from Heaven on high.

  I hear a voice callin’,

  I’ve gained the reward

  For the land where we never shall die…”

  As Foster and Bubba entered from the parking lot, Foster perked up, rubbed his hands together, licked his lips and took a good whiff.

  “Damn that smells good!”

  “To each his own… “

  The Dixie Diner was not exactly Bubba’s idea of a culinary treat, but he could well imagine that Foster might feel a need to fortify himself with grits and grease before arriving at Bellevue. They sat down in a booth, and the cook came from behind the counter to take their order. She was a ripe young lady by the name of Alma, whose ancestors might have been genteel planters but whose relatives now were mostly tenant farmers or gas station attendants.

  “How y’all doin’?”

  Foster was too absorbed in the menu to look up, but he couldn’t restrain his enthusiasm.

  “Real good, real good. A whole new day is about to dawn.”

  Bubba was somewhat less optimistic about the prospects for the morrow.

  “I’ll just have a cup of coffee, please.”

  “And I’ll have three eggs over easy, a double order of bacon, hash browns, a stack of buckwheat cakes, a glass of milk, a half a grapefruit, and a bowl of Cheerios.”

  Foster finally looked up to behold the lady who was preparing to minister to his needs, and his systems immediately crossed over from the nutritional to the aesthetic mode. The impact of this was not totally lost on Alma, even though she did not look up from the pad where she was recording his order with an esoteric form of hieroglyphics.

  “Where’re y’all headed?”

  “Just a little further up the road.”

  Alma was delighted to be able to have a friendly chat with Bubba in the name of public relations while bathing in Foster’s appreciative gaze.

  “You’re looking at the new owner of Bellevue Plantation.”

  Bubba gesture grandly towards Foster, and Alma let her eyes connect with Foster’s only long enough to encourage him.

  “Is that the Abernathy place? I wondered what was going to become of it.”

  “So do some other folks I know.”

  “Can you bring me some biscuits, too?”

  Alma turned to smile down at Foster as though to let him know that she could do a lot more than serve biscuits.

  “Comin’ right up.”

  As she walked back towards the grill, Foster was particularly fascinated by the manner in which the shapelessness of her white polyester uniform in no way corresponded to the reality underneath. Only the faint outline of a pair of bikini panties beckoned like the distant echo of a call to worship.

  Foster turned abruptly and slapped the tabletop.

  “Yessir, the South is gonna rise again.”

  Bubba hadn’t the foggiest notion what might be going on inside Foster’s head, but he couldn’t really say that the comment was any less appropriate than anything else one might say at four in the morning at the Dixie Diner.

  “Can it wait until I’ve gone to Glory?”

  “The trouble with you, Bubba, is you never believed in anything.”

  A part of Bubba’s mind which was exposed because of fatigue feared there was some truth in this even coming from Foster.

  “What would you have me believe in?”

  “Miracles. Life is an unending series of miracles.”

  Bubba smiled in admiration of Foster’s unbridled enthusiasm.

  “Just look at me. I was teetering on the brink and you come to me from the Old Man with the keys to the Kingdom.”

  “There’s no need to go overboard about it.”

  “But there is; that’s just it. When life calls, you can’t hold back. You’ve got to jump overboard.”

  “Well, don’t let me dampen your enthusiasm. I’m delighted to have you back; and if you can believe in miracles, more power to you.”

  Maybe Foster did have to be afraid of Bubba. Reasonableness – especially when reinforced by a sense of humor – was the deadliest of all enemies of the Spirit. Far easier to face the mechanized warfare of business and technology than to resist the infiltration of reasonableness or the gentle, seductive smile with which Despair worms its way into the heart offering human comforts. Maybe that was why the Old Man had chosen him. Somehow he must have come to understand that the fulfillment of Bellevue lay in Foster’s calling, that only by bringing Foster home again could Bellevue be redeemed.

  Alma placed a bowl of Cheerios in front of Foster. As she leaned across the table to pour Bubba’s coffee, the powder or perfume with which she pampered her body sang to Foster like a heavenly choir.

  V

  When Bubba’s car pulled up behind Bellevue, Foster stepped forth into the pre-dawn light like a bird emerging from his cracked eggshell. All around the house he could make out the outlines of a mysterious and amorphous world, gently swaying graygreen shapes yearning to be delineated by the light and beckoning to him like a sea of love and death.

  Bubba let the car door slam behind him as he pulled Foster’s duffel bag from the back seat.

  “Do you want me to take this stuff up to ... “

  “Ssshhhhhhhh!”

  Foster turned quickly with one finger to his lips and made a sweeping gesture with his other hand admonishing Bubba to consider his surroundings. Bubba could not help but react to Foster’s command. He could smile to himself and pretend that he was just amused by the absurdity of Foster’s manner, but he had nevertheless shut up in the midst of a perfectly reasonable inquiry as though someone had just reprimanded him for hawking peanuts in St. Peter’s. Why he should be intimidated by the notion that trees and grass and crickets in the backyard were a repository for the Holy Ghost was more than he cared to tackle at the moment. He was content simply to defer to Foster and try to contain his amusement at the hushed tones with which Foster finally addressed him.

  “I’m gonna sit on the porch for a while. Will you join me?”

  “If you don’t mind, I believe I’ll turn in. I’ve had a long day.”

  Bubba was whispering too – partially for the sake of a private joke and partially because he instinctively respected the desires of others. It made no difference to him what the content of the desire was – so long as it wasn’t injurious to anyone, it was worthy of respect. At some point very early in his life Bubba had
concluded unconsciously that human need was more real than anything else around, and he had never been able to discriminate between legitimate and spurious needs.

  “You can have the master bedroom or the guest room at the far end of the hall – whichever you prefer. See you tomorrow.”

  Bubba lugged Foster’s duffel bag towards the back door and watched him tiptoe around the corner of the house half expecting him to lift his arms and float off the ground.

  A doe came out of the bushes bordering the front lawn and walked through the predawn light almost up to the porch where Foster stood enraptured.

  VI

  The next morning was one of those early summer days when the sky is filled with billowy white clouds, and the air is thick with the buzzing of insects and the smell of weeds. Bubba was puttering around in the garden trying to find enough string beans to have for lunch. He had on a rumpled suit and a tie and was sweating fairly heavily, but he didn’t mind. It felt right to him – just like the dirt on his shoes and the way some of the leaves and stalks irritated the skin on the back of his hands. If you work in a garden, you get sweaty and dirty and prickly. To try to have it any other way was silly. Not that he was doing all that much work. It was hard to find beans among all the weeds and vines, but it didn’t require a great deal of physical effort.

  He heard the door slam, and he knew that his confrontation with Ruthie could no longer be avoided. He worked his way into the thickest part of the garden so that she would have to contend with the vines if she wanted to talk to him. He saw her coming around the corner of the house like a diesel locomotive, so he buried his head in the vines.

  “Where is he?”

  Bubba kept his head down and pretended that he wasn’t sure someone was speaking to him.

  “Wha’s’at?”

  “Stop trying to hide like a little boy. Why did you tell everyone that you’d found Foster?”

  “Cuz I did.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “I imagine he’s still sleeping. We got in pretty late.”

  Bubba stood up so that he could watch what the truth would do to someone like Ruthie.

  “I checked all the bedrooms.”

  “You did what?”

  “I don’t believe you found him.”

  “Oh, I found him all right.”

  “Well, he’s not here now and according to our attorney ... “

  “Ruthie, he’s here. I found him in Charleston. It’s all over.”

  “What makes you so sure it’s him.”

  “It’s him. Couldn’t be anybody else.”

  Bubba can see that Ruthie did not appreciate the implications of this private joke.

  “I know my own nephew.”

  Ruthie turned to leave.

  “You don’t know your own mind, much less a nephew you haven’t seen for eight years.”

  A shrill whistling sound from the shed signaled the end of the round. Jack had succeeded in firing up the boiler on the steam tractor. Lee came running out of the house.

  Jack tugged on the chain of the steam whistle on top of the tractor and beamed with pride as the whistle let out its deafening screech.

  A pipe burst, spraying water all over the shed, and the whistle petered out just as Lee came running up. Jack was undaunted. He talked to the tractor as he shut down the main valve.

  “It’s okay, darlin’. Don’t you worry one bit. You just relax for a while and let ol’ Jack take care of you.”

  He patted the side of the boiler as he went around to examine the leaking pipe.

  “I’ll bet that felt good after all these years. Nothing like getting all fired up and blowin’ off a little steam to cleanse the soul.”

  He gave a tug at the whistle, and it made a last desperate effort to sound off as the boiler pressure dropped to zero.

  VII

  The steam whistle had roused Foster from his sleep underneath a large oak tree in the woods surrounding the Bellevue mansion. He lay still and gazed at the dense forest above and around him. His hand instinctively dug through some dead leaves to find the earth beneath in an attempt to get his bearings. A dream of smiling faces lingered on the movie screen in his head – a gentle old man, a luscious peach of a woman – both reassuring him he could rise to the occasion and go forth to meet the day even if he had no idea who or where he was. It mattered not who he was. Wherever he had been placed, he was surely there for a reason, and he could only discover that reason and who he was if he stood up. The ground seemed firm enough. The sound that woke him was probably coming from his destination.

  Foster started to get up, and his back reprimanded him for sleeping on the ground. He managed to straighten himself and brushed some dirt from his coat as a gesture of respect for whatever destiny awaited him.

  VIII

  Lydia was keeping her vigil by the parlor window when she saw Foster come limping out of the bushes and start across the lawn towards the house. She gasped and stared in utter amazement for a moment. Then she went completely to pieces and began acting like a ten-year-old girl.

  “It’s Captain James! Captain James! He’s come back!”

  She ran to the front door and paused a moment for dramatic effect before flinging it open and bursting out onto the porch with her arms spread.

  Foster saw Lydia almost fall on her face as she came running down the porch steps and across the lawn. She was screaming hysterically as she ran, and the entire household has been alerted.

  “Captain James! Captain James!”

  Bubba shook his head with amused despair as he watched from the garden. Ruthie muttered under her breath as she watched the drama unfold for a moment before turning to go back into the house via the back door.

  “I have never in all my born days seen such a ridiculous spectacle.”

  Foster threw open his arms to receive Lydia.

  She collapsed into his arms in a dead faint, and he picked her up to carry her towards the house. Bubba came bustling over to help, when he saw Lydia collapse.

  IX

  Jack entered the dining room where the rest of the clan had gathered for dinner. He was covered with grease and soaking wet.

  He stopped in his tracks when he realized that Sister Sarah is saying grace.

  “Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for these and all Thy many, many wonderful blessings and most especially O Lord, do we thank Thee for the return of our beloved Foster after lo these many years of separation. As I was saying at breakfast, God, you just don’t know how much it means to us to have him back…”

  Bubba felt the urge to reach for his gavel when Sarah took a breath and a moment to compose the rest of her thoughts.

  “Amen. Thank you, Sarah.”

  Sarah was a little startled to be so rudely interrupted, but any attempt to resume her conversation with the Lord was rendered impossible by the noise of dishes and silverware and idle chatter as everyone started to dig in. All she could manage was a quiet aside.

  “We’ll talk about this more, later, Dear Lord. It’s OK.”

  Jack took his seat, wiping his hands on his shirt before helping himself to some biscuits.

  William was sitting next to Foster, and he decided to make an effort to be friendly as they ate.

  “Bubba tells me you’re a writer.”

  “I think I’m more of a midwife to the Divine Spirit.”

  Foster said this matter-of-factly, with a full mouth and without any trace of pomposity or affectation. He seemed to have recovered some fragments of the ancient text explaining why he was seated around a table with all these folks enjoying a Sunday dinner.

  Ruthie tried to exercise some crowd control simply by speaking louder than anyone else.

  “I think now that Foster’s back, we should begin thinking about what to do with the estate.”

  Lee responded in a way most at the table would have agreed was absolutely on target.

  “Pass the biscuits, please.”

  Ruthie alone attempted to stick to the agenda.r />
  “There’s a lot of different ways we can go, and I know some people who might be able to advise us.”

  “Hogwash.”

  As usual it was a bit unclear whether The Colonel’s remark was directed towards Ruthie or the world in general, but Ruthie wisely concluded that lunchtime might not be the best occasion for rational discourse.

  William was in the zone of obliviousness which had served him so well in his married life.

  “Have you ever published any of your stuff?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I ask because I’m on the editorial board of the Southern Life Insurance Monthly, and we occasionally publish poems and stories when we can’t sell all the advertising space.”

  Foster saw no irony in this gesture. He was more interested in his own status as a poet.

  “I haven’t actually written anything down yet.”

  “I see ... Will you be staying on here, or do you plan to go back to Charleston?”