Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 17:32:33 -0400 From: Jesse Jesse Subject: Being Seen Pt9 Thanks to everyone for the kind words and compliments about the story. I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated.....Been a little hectic, but I'm gonna try to get some more wrote. Just be patient :) Three months, three months already since Gram had passed away. How I missed her, missed the humor in that, for all those years of being such a gentile lady, her sudden rather foul mouth and impatience. It brought on, of course, by the Alzheimer's disease, but it had proven able to lighten many dull and gloomy occasions around the farm. I missed her concern and kindness when the disease didn't cloud her mind, missed her usually soft-spoken voice. To those who've not experience a death close to their heart, you will be surprised at how that loved one's very being seems to linger behind. Though I was rightfully the new owner of the farm and all Grandpa and Gram's property, I couldn't bring myself to stay in the farmhouse. It was as if every time I opened a door to enter a bedroom, every time I stepped into a dining room that had housed many of Gram's special social occasions throughout the years, I half expected her to be standing there, smiling and waiting for me. It wasn't an eerie or frightening feeling, like some strange ghost story. No, it was an aching pain, an emptiness at realizing that Gram was never going to be standing before me again. It wasn't just the pain of losing Grandma though. Another feeling had taken root in my heart, resentment and anger. I spent countless nights lying in bed, thinking angrily about how my parents had treated Grandpa and Gram. Damn them! Damn my father for being so selfish that he couldn't even show compassion to his own parents. And damn my mother for being so selfish that, even though there were rumors floating around that she and Dad had finally divorced, she still though she'd weasel her way into benefiting from Gram and Grandpa's suffering health! Though I tried desperately to hide the anger festering within, Seth seemed to notice my uneasiness and hesitance at the idea of living in the farmhouse. "Hon, if it bother's you that much, why don't you rent it, or sell it even? I mean what's the use in keeping up a big 'ole house like that if you're not gonna get some kind of enjoyment out of it?" I knew he was right, but it seemed I just couldn't bring myself to think of some stranger living in the house, someone whom Gram and Grandpa had never known. No, that simply was out of the question. My final resolution to the problem was brought on, however, not by memories or renters, or even a real estate agent. No, the solution came in the form of a all-too-familiar sports car screaming up the driveway one warm early-spring afternoon as Seth and I poured through box after box of packed memorabilia Gram had stored up for half a century. Seth noticed the sound of the car first and made for the door. "Seth!" My half-shout took us both by surprise. "Seth wait. I need to handle this on my own." Seth stared at me, a look of worry etched across his face. "Are you sure?" "Yes. He's my father, at least biologically, and I'm the one he's tried to buffalo, so I need to be the one to handle this." He was back across the room in an instant. "All right. But know this, I'm gonna be watching out the window. If he so much as looks cross-eyed at you, I'm gonna stomp his guts out!" I found myself smiling at my southern 'knight in shining armor.' "I'll be fine." My father was standing on the porch when I stepped outside the door, a snarl on his face. "I see you've moved you and your toy-boy in." Though my stomach instantly churned and burned with what I could only describe as hatred, I forced myself to remain civil. "It's nice to see you too. Lovely day, isn't it." "Don't you start some....." "No! Don't you start!" I immediately checked myself and lowered my voice. "Dad, Daddy, I'll be happy to invite you in, talk, discuss, whatever it is you're wanting, but we'll only have this talk if we can both be civil about it. I'm tired of fighting." His face contorted with fury. "Then sign over what's rightfully mine!" "Dad listen to me. Gram only did this because you and Momma were always fighting. I tried to get her not to sign everything to me, but she wouldn't listen. I didn't try..." "Don't tell me what you 'didn't try' boy! I'm not a damned fool! That's why you came down here in the first place, that's why my father, damn him in his grave, brought you down here to begin with. He always resented me, always resented your bitch of a mother and me getting married, and always wanted some way to punish me. That's the only reason you're here right now!" "Dad will you PLEASE listen. You won't even give me a chance to explain! I was going to tell you that I've been doing some thinking about all this. Dad, Daddy, I want to make you an offer. I'm not living in Gram's house." "My house!" "GRAM'S HOUSE!..............Anyway, we're not staying here. Now, here's my offer. I'm not interested in the lumber mill so much, or really even the farm, but Gram, Seth, and I started a venture, if you care to call it that, with the railway a few months back, and I don't wanna give that up. We've all spent too much time and money to see our efforts go down the drain now. All I'm asking is that I be allowed to stay in the river house and keep my work going on the railway. Do what you want with the rest, but I ask for those two things." A terrible sneer snaked its way across my father's face. "That queer cowboy in there's gone and fucked your head up boy! Do you really think I'm gonna let you stay here, after all the pain in the ass you've caused me? I'll see us both in the gutter before I let that happen! Not on your queer life!" He sneered even wider. "I thought he was stupid the first minute I set eyes on him after your beloved grandpa hired him. Now I see just how stupid those work-hands really are, and worst of all, he's got you fooled into some idiotic shit too!"............. It happened in an instant, before I'd thought of repercussions, before I'd thought of whether Seth had heard any of my father's words, before I'd thought at all! Seth had left an ancient looking fishing rod of Grandpa's we'd found earlier in the attic propped next to the front door. In one instantaneous, fluid motion I'd grabbed the fishing rod, made a giant swing, and had brought the flimsy end of the rod across my father's face, leaving a gash of blood in its wake. My father stood, half terrorized and half shocked, with his hand over the wound on his cheek. Regaining his consciousness, and more of his temper, he made a leap toward where I stood, but was met with yet another resounding smack as the fishing rod's end came smacking and scratching against his face. Nothing short of pure fury and hate shown in his eyes as he made yet another attempt to grab me or the fishing rod. But this third attempt was met, yet again, with another stinging blow by the fishing rod, bringing my father falling to his face. A fury I'd never felt before in my life began to cloud my mind, a red-hot fury that make me shake with rage and hate. And as this hatred took grip of my mind, I felt myself bringing the fishing rod down time after time across my father's back. These were not the stinging stripes made by an occasional intervention of a parent's "hickory limb." I felt myself pouring every ounce of strength I held in my body into the blows I rained down upon my father, bringing scream after scream of pain. A spot or two of blood had already begun to seep through his shirt, and it was only as I saw the blood upon my father's back that I began to regain emotional and physical control of myself. Though almost 20 year my senior, and easily 50 pounds heavier, my father scrambled against the railing of the porch, seeming to almost cower before me. My voice shook and even broke as I spat harsh words at the man who had been my father. "Now you listen to me. I don't care what you say about me. I don't care what you say about other people in our family, or even what you say about the other people on this farm. Hell, I don't even give a damn what you say about the bitch that is my mother. Blow each others fucking brains out for all I care! But there are three people in this world that you will never say anything about while I'm around. If I ever hear you say a harmful word about Gram and Grandpa again, and most especially if you ever say anything about Seth again, I'll try my damnedest to kill you! I don't care if I have to get the fucking chair for it, I'll kill you!...........I've tried to love you, tried every way in the world I knew of to reason with you and give you what's 'rightfully yours,' as you say, but you're so damned selfish that all you care about is making a dollar off two parents that you couldn't even be bothered to attend their funerals! It end's today. Do you hear me! It's over. You are no longer welcome on MY property. You hear me? MY PROPERTY!!!! It's done, the wills have been looked over by no less that three different lawyers in town and are considered legal. There's not a damned thing you can do about it now. And if you do decided to try and take me to court, I've got over $500,000 in the bank; just got the report back from Mr. Emerson yesterday, and every bit of business Grandpa owned is making more money every day, the railroad included. And you know that Mr. Emerson was not only one of the best lawyers in town, but a friend of Grandpa's for 40 years or more, so do you really wanna fight this any more?" My father seemed to be caught in battle between feeling hatred and a sullen defeat. And as I looked at the pathetic man in front of me, I was revolted. "I don't think you've got the backbone to face me in court. You're afraid of what the judge really would say! Now get off my property before I shoot you on the spot!" I watched him drive away, my body shaking and weak. Finally when he'd disappeared from view I allowed myself to turn back toward the house. Seth stood in the doorway, his face a mixture of terror and unbelief. "I cannot believe you just did that!" I attempted something of a weak smile. "Neither can I." "Do you think he will try to fight the will?" "No. He doesn't have the backbone to do it. A man doesn't threaten and try to humiliate his own flesh and blood...............he's not a man." Seth's face transformed from its look of shock to something between a smirk and smile. "So what are you gonna do now, Mr. Bossman?" "We're moving into the farmhouse." Seth stared silently at me. "Are you sure you can do that? I though you said......." "I know what I said. But suddenly, even though I can't explain it, I feel different." He smiled as he crossed the porch to where I was. "You sure it isn't that you're just trying to spite your daddy?" "Don't call him that!" Seth's face fell and he looked hurt. I immediately felt sorry for being so short with him. "I'm so sorry Seth. He's not a father, though. Father's don't do stuff like that. I know I overreacted, and some day, years from now, I'd like to think that I'd apologized to him and we were getting along, but he's never been a father, none of my almost sixteen years!" I pecked a light kiss on his cheek. "I'm sorry for being so hateful." His smile returned, rather devilishly. "I'm not so sure I'm gonna be able to get use to this new take-charge, commanding Jessie. Kinda liked the old one myself." I felt a grin spread across my face. "Well, he's still here. I just needed to handle this with my father." He smiled a wicked smile. "Well if you handle all your enemies the way you did him, remind me never to piss you off!" I brandished the fishing rod still in my hand. "Don't you forget it! Might have to discipline you some time!" He reached down and placed a gentle kiss on my lips and smiled yet again. "So what's your first orders, Mr. Bossman of the farm?" I found my own face spreading into an impish smile as I glanced over our shoulders to make sure the yard was clear of workers. The gasp that escaped from Seth's mouth when I replied was worth every penny Gram had left in the bank. I reached my hand down between his waistband and skin and firmly grasped the soft bulge that filled his underwear, giving it a squeeze, and raised my mouth, allowing my tongue to trace his ear before whispering into it. "Well, for starters, you can follow me up to my old bedroom, take every bit of clothing you have on your body off, so I can see what a stud my 'hired help' is, and then you can let me suck that 'fresh farm meat' until I get every bit of 'fresh milk' you have to offer!"