The Cottoncrest Curse: A Novel

Chapter 82

277 Today Chapter 82 “Since Hank Matthews said he had bought Cottoncrest for his dead daddy, I told him he must have loved his father very much. “‘Loved him? Don’t know if you could call it that. He was a tough man. Big in every way. Big beard. Big arms. Big voice. Big strap of a belt that he’d whip me with. Blacksmith he was, until there weren’t any enough need for blacksmiths to make a living. He refused to go back to sharecropping. Said he’d rather die than sharecrop on Widow Brady’s plantation.’ “You know, some people get misty-eyed talking about their fathers, but not Matthews. It was almost as if he had distanced himself from both the man and the memory. “He leaned over to refill my glass, which was less than half-empty. ‘What’s the matter, boy? Can’t hold your liquor? If you’re going to sit here, drink with me, unless you’re too proud to do that.’ “What could I do? I picked up the glass and drank deeply. It wasn’t time yet to show him what I had brought. Not yet. “So, I asked him what was it like, growing up in Parteblanc. That was a way to get into the subject. “‘You know what it’s like to be poor—really poor?’ he asked me. Then he just leaned back in that chair, staring up at the big oak. ‘I saw at a glance from your clothes and your manner that you have no idea. Being dirt-poor—if you don’t know any better—is not that bad. When you’re young, you just think that’s the way things are. You have nothing to compare it to. Except for the really rich—and you know you’ll never be like them—you’re surrounded by people in your same condition . What you have, they have, and what you don’t have, none of your friends have. But worse than being poor, you see, is getting a whole lot 278 poorer. Then you see the difference. Then you remember what it used to be like. And that’s the worst.’ “‘That’s what happened to us. Just getting poorer and poorer. And nothing that my Daddy did changed anything. That man seemed to have the worst luck. Wouldn’t talk to his old friends because of some grudge he had about something they did to him years before when he was a member of the Knights of the White Camellia. Wouldn’t ask for help. Just took it out on me. He’d get angry at the slightest thing, and he’d pull off his belt. Never hit me with all his strength, that I know. If he had, he’d have cut me in half. I’ve seen him pick up an anvil by himself . You know how heavy that is? “‘I knew better than to mess with my Daddy. I just took those beatings , even though they were most undeserved.’ “Here he was, an old man, and the scars of his childhood were still with him. I had put down my pen, and I was just listening. I was trying to be empathetic, not saying anything but trying to nod my head in the appropriate places to let him know I was paying close attention. “He finally fell silent. But I needed him to continue. We had to get further before I pulled out my folder. I needed to steer the topic to his relationship with Ganderson. I just was unsure about how to do it in a subtle enough way. “I tried a different approach. I asked him whether all these beatings gave him less respect for his father in any way. “‘Hell no,’ he told me. ‘I respected the hell out of him. I mean, after all, he was doing the best he could do, and yet the best was not enough. What I wanted to do more than anything else was to please him. He hated niggers. I would show him that I hated them more, as was only right. He hated Tee Ray Brady’s widow and all of that family. I would hate them more and get revenge for whatever Tee Ray had done to him, which I did. He hated ol’ man Ganderson, despite, or maybe because of, what Ganderson did for me. So, I grew to hate Ganderson too. Spit on his grave...