OFF THE PAGE WITH RAYMOND ATKINS

OFF THE PAGE WITH RAYMOND ATKINS

If living in this new millennium has taught us anything, it is that things don’t always go as planned, and thus it was with this month’s column. I was all set to share with you the story about that time I got sued by Metallica. Yes, that Metallica. It was to be a tale of misunderstandings, and something called Napster, and a young teenaged boy who was headstrong like his mama, and a hapless dad who kept saying that someone was going to want to get paid, and by golly he was right. Anyway, I was all set to send this humorous story of woe to Mandy when she informed me that she wanted to go in a different direction.

Mandy: Let’s run another chapter from your new book!

Ray: Well, I don’t know…

Mandy: Our readers loved it and want more!

Ray: But I’ve got this great Metallica essay…

Mandy: You know, that’s a good-looking Republican cat you’ve got there. It would be a shame if something happened to him…

*Note from the editor: Ray’s only joking a little bit. After last month’s column I had to have another chapter and from the responses from you - the readers - I think y’all feel the same. So turn the page for another great read!

Horace

I knew Horace was going to die when I dreamed about the wedding. Mama had always told us that dreaming about a wedding foretold someone dying, and that telling about the dream before breakfast would surely make the tragedy come true. It was a just a silly country superstition, to be sure, but she was right as rain when it came to my husband. And to herself, for that matter, which kind of makes me wonder sometimes when I ponder on it. The night before she died, she dreamed of a beautiful wedding in a faraway land, although why she spoke about that dream the next morning while I was frying the eggs I've never been able to fathom. She forgot herself, I suppose, due to her fever, and sure enough, she was laying a corpse that very evening, leaving me with no mama and with a brother to cook for in the bargain.

But I didn't tell a living soul about the wedding dream I had until this very day, never mind before breakfast back then. And I might just as well have painted the news on the side of the barn for all the good it did to keep silent. To be frank, I'm not exactly sure that anything we mortals do—or don’t do—has much to bear on the good Lord's fancies, anyway. So for whatever reason, Horace died. He was killed by a German boy, I guess, although I never knew the long of it, because the letter I received was a little scarce of details. I've kept that letter, and I fold it out and read it from time to time, even though I can recite it like my alphabet without even looking.

"Dear Mrs. Brown," it began, and it was a neat hand for a man's writing. "It is my sad duty to inform you of the death of your husband, Private Horice Brown. He met his end bravely while engaging the enemy. Please accept my heartfelt sympathy over this terrible loss."

It still makes me blue after all this time when I consider on it, but sorrow is a part of living just like the rest of it—maybe the biggest part—and I've learned that it does not do to dwell on the sadness. The words from the captain were kind, considering the circumstances, and I never held it against him that he spelled Horace's name with an i instead of an a. I supposed that he had the hard chore of writing to more young wives and crying mamas than he could remember, and that the burden was as heavy on him as a trace chain. The letter was a trifle short, as I have said, but then, there just wasn't that much more to be said, anyhow, once the sad news had been broken to me.

Preacher Bob White told me at the memorial we had for my husband that the good Lord needed Horace in Heaven and that was where He was going to have him, and there wasn't much that I could do about that, like it or not. Preacher White was the pastor over at Will's Chapel, and I never cared much for him or his church, although I am not the one who burned it down, no matter what you might have heard to the contrary. He knew his Bible, which was mostly to his credit, and I have always believed in giving praise where it was warranted. But he was harsh when he was dealing with his flock, even when a gentle word was in order, and even though it wouldn't have cost him a red cent to use one. He was a short man who had not missed too many meals, and he was generally in a full sweat even in the dead of winter, which always led me to wonder what had him so heated up.

"For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," he said, while he laid his hands on me for solace, although I was not sure whether it was my comfort or his that he was trying to accommodate. But the words were the divine truth regardless of the messenger, and they didn't need interpretation, which is not always the case with Scripture. We each owe one death, and it was Horace’s time to pay. The old Reaper will come for us all, and well I know it now, but it didn't make it any kinder for me to bear back then, eighteen and a widow, alone in the world and not quite knowing where my next plate of food was coming from.

I wonder sometimes if I'll be a young girl again when I see Horace away beyond the clouds, or if he'll be decrepit like me, or if I’ll be an old woman and him just a boy of twenty. But I don't suppose it matters much either way, because see him I will, and he is still my husband even though death did us part. It may not be entirely Christian of me, but I hope I don't encounter Preacher White at all when I make my journey, and if only half of what all I heard he got up to while he was alive proved true, then it's not likely that I will be seeing him on the business end of the pearly gates, preacher or no. But that is for the good Lord to decide, not me, and if He wants my opinion, I suppose He'll ask for it.

I can still see Horace standing there at the train depot, young and handsome, trying to be brave in his soldier suit. I couldn't look at him long, to my shame, because I didn't want him to see me cry. But I bawled just the same, and I always hoped that the thought of me being upset at his leaving wasn't what got him killed. This was a foolish idea, but it seems like those kind pop into your head easier than the other variety, and I expect I was entitled, anyway, seeing what all I was going through at the moment.

"Take care of yourself, Girl," he hollered as the steam whistle blew and the train began to pull away. He always called me Girl instead of Ruby, and he always spoke with kindness and affection.

"I love you, Horace!" I cried as I ran down the platform beside him. He smiled and blew me a kiss, and I could see that he was about to cry, too.

"Take care of Mama," he yelled as the train picked up speed.

Well, I promised him then that I would, because he was going off to war and he needed to think that all the folks at home were going to be all right. I don't make vows lightly, as a general rule, and once a promise is made, I try to honor it. So even though Horace's mama was a difficult woman, to put it kindly, I mostly managed to look after her like Horace wanted. At least, I did until the day I knocked her out of her rocking chair and hastened her departure to the promised land, but that was not necessarily my fault and is a whole other story, besides, and right now I want to get back to Horace.

It was the last time I saw him alive or dead, and he has lain cold in his grave somewhere in France for endless years with no one tending to him, unless some good-hearted Frenchman took on the toil, which isn't likely, although poor Horace gave all he had to give for those folk, and someone ought to have kept the weeds pulled off him.

He was twenty years old and had been my husband for two years. I was a slip of a girl at the time, no bigger than a penny, and I was with a child but didn't know it, being that I was fairly ignorant for a married woman. Mama had passed on, and Horace's mama never quite took to me—or to anyone else, much, that I could tell—so I didn't have a soul to talk to about female problems, and that kind of business wasn't addressed much in the books of the time, and there weren't that many books around, anyhow. So a little one was on the way—a boy, as it turned out—but Horace never knew, and I know he would have been proud. He wanted an armload of children, and I was determined that he would have them, no matter how much of that wifely business I had to put up with to get them here.

But the good Lord moves in strange and mysterious ways, which is surely a fact and not for the likes of me to figure. So I received back the letter I wrote to Horace when I found out that his seed had planted, and got back more of my letters besides, because he was already gone. He only lasted in those trenches a short while before the bell tolled, and I hope he wasn't alone when his time rolled around. He was a gentle boy who deserved better than he got, but that can be said of a lot of folks, and Mr. Woodrow Wilson and General Black Jack Pershing should have left him home safe with me. But should have never did, and it has been a source of misery to me that he never knew about his sweet baby.

I've heard it said that time heals all wounds, but that has not been my experience. The passing of the years dulls the ache a touch, but the cut has been over eighty years in the mending, and I don't think it will ever scar over if it hasn't by now.

I would like to know what you think of both the character and her voice. You can email me at raymondlatkins@aol.com or message me on facebook.