Peter Matthiessen - Killing Mister Watson

Only three men came up from the Islands. Stiff and shy, they stood apart in ancient suits and overstarched white shirts buttoned to the collar, without ties. I did not speak to them until Lucius shook hands and introduced them-Captain R.B. Storter, Gene Roberts, Willie Brown. Where, I thought, was his friend Postmaster Smallwood? Where was Henry Thompson and Tant Jenkins, who knew us as children in the Islands?

Nearby was a small common woman-pretty, I suppose-with bright dark eyes and long black hair not put up as it should have been in one her age. She had a child with her, a ten-year-old or thereabouts, eyes leached out by weeping, rather plain. It was their real grief, not their poor clothes, that distinguished them. When the child caught me peeping, she tried a little smile, then looked away.

Lucius greeted them a bit familiarly, I thought. When I asked him who they were, he blushed and said, That's Tant's sister from Caxambas and her daughter, Pearl.

I said, The one who used to be housekeeper for Papa? Lost her baby in the hurricane? And Lucius nodded. Is that the one that he called Netta? No, Lucius said, this is Aunt Netta's half sister. I kept after him, feeling mean: Was this one close to Papa, too, like your "Aunt Netta"? Why is she sniffling so hard? She enjoy funerals?

He looked at me, not sure yet what I knew. Guess she took it to heart, he said, with that shy bent smile, wrinkled at one corner, that always reminded me of our dear Mama.

Frank Tippins was frowning hard at Lucius, shaking his head. People had commenced to notice, and Lucius moved away. My father was no saint, I murmured, to let Frank off the hook. No, ma'am, he wasn't. That child is my half sister, I insisted, putting him back on it. Yes, ma'am, she is, the sheriff said.

The gash of raw earth looked desolate, unwelcoming. I was glad of this cold norther because even in the wind, the odor of that box was something terrible. It was shocking, truly. Surely these would-be mourners must abhor the rotting human whose awful face was glowering at this pine lid from the inside. I felt sick-and sick with shame at my own shame-that my own flesh and blood could smell so dreadful. The infernal stench of Satan, said these Baptist faces, risen from Hell! The men looked stuffed, that's how hard they were holding their breaths, and the women coughed, resorting to their hankies. Everyone must be tussling with poor Papa, doing their utmost to pretend nothing was wrong.

Oh, dear Lord, have them hurry my remains into the ground before anyone can even think about the worms, the odor, the dank gray hair and fingernails that grow like fungus, so they say, from our poor dead flesh in the grave. Have them remember "the real me," a fresh-smelling young foolish and romantic girl, Miss Carrie Watson!

Walter put his arm around my shoulders, drawing attention to my distress by his loving kindness.

Lucius ground his teeth, he could not stand still. He was absolutely furious, with God, I guess. He wandered away from our stricken party to stand beside Papa's little woman and the thin little half sister that I didn't even know I had until today! As for Eddie, the poor fellow was so upset by the stink of his father's corruption that he stood stiff as a wood Indian, as if he might topple right into the grave.

The only man who dragged out his big kerchief and held it to his nose, the only one who hawked and spit, was ol' Jim Cole, who drove up late in his new Cadillac, you would have thought Mr. Edison himself was getting buried. I was very, very sorry that he came, and did not greet him. Even Walter turned away from him with a curt nod. He had no business here among the mourners. Captain Jim Cole hated Papa because Papa had contempt for him and didn't hide it.

Am I being unfair to "Captain Jim"? I am, and I don't care. He was only there not to miss out on something scandalous that he could jeer and chortle over later.

Dear gentle Mama could not abide what the Press calls "this fine upstanding citizen." Once Mama said, Your father has his violent spells, he is accursed, and I fear for his immortal soul, but he is also kind and generous, and he is manly, and he does not stint. This greedy, cruel man, with all his getting, does violence to the spirit, and I would understand the Good Lord better if I knew which man He would raise up on Judgment Day.

When Papa came north through Fort Myers not long before she died, poor Mama guessed that he was on the run. He said goodbye to her and went away for the last time, cursing the fate that prevented him from taking care of her. Mama told me she had asked him where poor Rob was, and he said, If God knows, He has said nothing to me. Telling this, she looked bewildered, as if wondering at the last minute if she had known her husband after all.

Mama lay with her hands flat on the coverlet, those fine hands with their long sensitive fingers that had the same waxen hue in death as in her life. She was mustering up strength, I think. While I went downstairs to make her tea, she scratched a note.

There is a wound in your poor father I could never heal, and may the Lord who gave him life have mercy and forgive him at the last, and give him rest. Because Papa, too, is made in our Lord's image. He is a man, a human being, whose violence is only the dark part of him, there is also a life-giving side that flourishes in the full light. That side is loving, merry, full of courage, and that is the side that you must cherish, knowing he loves you children very dearly.

The family had agreed there would be no eulogy, but I had kept that pitiful scrawled scrap, and I read it aloud at Papa's graveside. It got tear-spotted some more as I read along, but my tears were like lost raindrops in the sun, I could not grieve. Poor Lucius wept without change of expression, his tears rolled down quiet as dew. I hoped that letter would redeem some of Eddie's anger and permit his grief, but I couldn't tell how Mama's words affected him. He acted as if unaware of my beseeching, he pretended he was hardly there at all.

Our Papa and Mama lie just near the Langford plot, with its two little stones: John Roach Langford, 1906-1906. Infant Langford, 1907. Two little stones. So much for Mother Carrie.

Whichever bunch they put me in, I'll be near Papa. The Langfords arranged for a small stone, without an epitaph.

November 11, 1855 – October 24, 1910

My Fay asked in her sweet clear voice what the J stood for, and the "mourners" looked a little startled. All these years he was known as E.J. Watson, and it took a child to ask about that J! Mama once told me that his given name was E.A. Watson. When and why he changed to J she did not know. Our Granny Ellen in Fort White can no longer tell us, since she died before her son, early this year-God's final mercy! As for Aunt Minnie Collins, who was said to be so beautiful, she was "indisposed," her family wrote, and could not come.

Papa's woman from Caxambas had already turned to go when she heard Fay's question. In a whiskey voice, more like a croak, she called out "Jack." When Lucius kindly hurried her along, she tottered backwards, still seeking my eye. When I turned to her, she called out "E. Jack Watson!"

As we left the cemetery Walter's Aunt Poke asked aloud why Eddie didn't use his middle name. Couldn't he call himself Elijah, like his grandfather? Her idea was that a change of name might spare the poor boy (as she called him) difficulties in the future- that is, if he means to stay here in Fort Myers, Aunt Poke said.

We had all thought about Eddie's name, poor Eddie most of all, but no one but Aunt Poke had said a word. Eddie knew Aunt Poke was speaking "for the family." So did I. We thought she was suggesting that he move away. He went red but managed to control himself and not burst out with anything unseemly.