Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:09:06 -0400 From: John Ellison Subject: The Landing - Chapter 8 This story contains situations and scenes of graphic sex between consenting males. All legal disclaimers apply. If this topic offends you, do not read any further; and ask yourself why you are at this site. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, although it may be loosely based on real events and people. If you are under the age of 18 (21 in some areas) and too young to be reading such material or if you are in a locale or country where it is not legal to read such material then please leave immediately and come back when it is legal for you to do so. We'll be glad to have you back. Copyright 2009 by John Ellison Additional works publish in Nifty in the Military Category: The Phantom of Aurora The Boys of Aurora Aurora Tapestry The Knights of Aurora Aurora Crusade The "Aurora" books are a series and should be read in sequence. A Sailor's Tale Constructive criticism is always welcome, and comments are appreciated. Flames expounding a personal agenda are not appreciated and will be treated with the contempt they deserved. Please feel free to send comments to: paradegi@sympatico.ca The Landing Chapter Eight The fiasco at the Consolidated Schools and the antics of the Smiths were fodder for the gossips for weeks. The biddies gathered in clutches to shake their heads, sip tea and nibble on shrimp sandwiches. The good old boys gathered downtown, sipped their "coffee" - no doubt the product of one of Daddy Smith's stills, and laughed their asses off. Stubby Richmond, whom everyone rightly assumed had been in on the scheme from the get go, smiled around his store-bought teeth. He had embarrassed the county officials, had succeeded in keeping the school white, and demonstrated the base, feral nature of Negroes. In other words, life returned to what passed for normal. I heard the laughter and the coarse jokes, but paid them little attention. I was much too involved now in other things. First there was school. I liked Parker-Semmes. The instructors, most of whom had been hired away from the Consolidated Schools, were familiar to me. The academic program was first rate and, much to Damian Lee's delight, the "Day Boys" could participate in the sports program. He was out on the playing fields every day after class, and while I was happy to see him happy, his football playing played havoc with our sex lives. The big goof was usually too tired, and too bruised after being pummeled and pounded on the gridiron! I think Damian Lee enjoyed the physical contact, the nudity in the showers after practice, the coarse humor and homoerotic badinage and reveled in the ability to be able to savor the firm, hard muscles that he could feel without fear. While I missed our once nightly sessions, sex was not something I missed at all. There was Sinjin, who was always "up" for a session, which usually happened whenever he came around to do our homework. These sessions were infrequent, however, as he was deeply involved not only with Jack Mather, but also Miles Carroll. They were a threesome and according to Sinjin managed to find every out-of-the way hidey hole in sight. I was occasionally involved with Pendleton Izard. We would meet once or twice a week in the library and then retire to his room in Parker Hall, the Senior Cadets' barracks. Miles and Jack were rarely there, as both were involved in sports, or off somewhere with Sinjin, so we had privacy and as we kept the noise down, no one suspected that we were studying not calculus, but comparative anatomy. I visited Tony Ravelli at least once a week, always with the excuse that I was tutoring him. Sex with Tony was pleasant, but hardly fulfilling for me. For Tony sex was just a means to get off. He would not return any favors. He liked having his dick sucked, and was one of those guys who stayed hard after they came, so much so that he usually got off twice. Once drained, as it were, he would roll away, breathing heavily, and thank me for what I had done to him. Knowing that Tony would never do anything back, I accepted the situation. There was really no point in doing otherwise. He was a straight boy, at least in his own mind, and that was that. Not that I was desperate, or anywhere near desperation. John and Thomas Pegram were always available, as were Tristan and Damian Conyngham, and from time to time we would meet, usually down at the swimming hole. Charlie Pegram I saw from time to time, but as he was now a Senior Cadet at the Citadel, and a member of the South Carolina Guard, his visits were few and far between. We also saw little of Philip Charles who, like his fellow classmate, Charlie, was deeply involved in his military training. The war in Vietnam was an inferno of death and destruction, and more and more young men were being called up. Both Philip Charles and Charlie had signed papers and upon graduation they were slated Basic Officer Training, Charlie assigned to Camp Lejeune, and Philip Charles to Fort Bragg, and from there to Vietnam. In a way the war brought prosperity to the Landing, in the form of more and more soldiers being trained out at Camp Stephen Weed. Being soldiers, and knowing what Fate had in store for them, they flocked to town, flush with cash on paydays, looking for booze and women. Overbridge underwent a metamorphosis of sorts, with six new taverns and two new whore houses springing up, mostly on the western edge of town, although Peckinham's and Ethel's still did land office business. Miss Letty MacDonald, knowing a good thing when she saw it, sent the tired old whores she usually had staffing her house packing, and imported pros from New Orleans. The shops and stores, not only in the white section of town but also in Overbridge, were also busy. Papa Ravelli, despite his ingrained prejudices against them, hired more colored waiters to cope with the influx of army officers and their ladies (a small number of cottages having been built for married officers) who dined almost nightly at the terrace restaurant. Market Day was almost chaotic at times, as many of the soldiers were farm boys, or came from small towns all over the country, and Market Day reminded them of home, and they came in droves. Daddy Smith, with his sons in the pokey, complained that he had to do everything himself, from bottling the corn liquor to selling it. Mr. Beidermeyer, who wasn't complaining at all, seeing as many of the soldiers shopped in his department store, buying touristy souvenirs, Hawaiian shirts (the gaudier the better), Bermuda shorts (plaids were "in") and buck knives. Other popular items were pieces of jewelry fashioned from Carolina gold (small deposits having been found at Ridgeway) and amethysts, from Due West and Jonesboro, gifts for the girls left behind I suppose. Mr. Beidermeyer did opine, however, that the new prosperity wouldn't last, and advised anyone who would listen to him to, "Enjoy the war; the peace will be terrible!" Few listened, and few saw what Mr. Beidermeyer saw, for along with the prosperity, the war brought division, social and political, division so intense that it divided families, and set father against son, and brother against brother. We were of course, not unaware of what was going on in the country. Thanks to television, and every other media form, we knew that a vast, anti-war movement was at work. We had seen the horrible TV reports of the carnage of the Tet Offensive, the heroic if useless defense of Khe San by the Marines, and the protest marches that seemed to happen nightly in all the northern cities. Driven by biased talking heads and written about by equally biased newspaper reporters, the movement gained adherents, and every liberal, left leaning Democrat jumped on the band wagon, from Hollywood stars to once respected Senators and Congressmen. Most folk in town were not necessarily opposed to what was happening. They were Southerners and believed in their military, believed that it was an honor to serve, and answer Liberty's call. Still, there were those in town who were passionately opposed to the war, Crazy Betsey van Lews leading the charge. In Overbridge the anti-war movement was deeply entrenched, the activists and rabble rousers claiming it was a "white man's war and a black man's fight." This was a specious argument to anyone who bothered to look at the statistics, and anyone who actually read the Butcher's Bill when it was finally rendered. At the end of the day, of the 58,183 dead, 50,120 were white, and 7,264 were black. Of those casualties, South Carolina counted 896 of her sons. While there were no demonstrations in town, and the anti-war rhetoric was confined to the preachers, it was out there, and we all knew it. Another divisive force was politics. The South had, since the War Between the States, been a Democratic bastion. No self-respecting Southerner would vote Republican if his life depended on it. The phrase, "Yellow Dog Democrat" was apt and appropriate: you could put a yellow dog on the ticket as the Democratic candidate for any office, and the thing would be elected over any well qualified, respected Republican. Southerners take politics seriously, and no one was too disappointed when Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek, and would not accept, the Democratic nomination for re-election. Johnson was not well-liked, nor respected. His Civil Rights legislation, his fumbling, his "liberalism", and the firm opinion of many that he was a traitor to his kith and kin (as a Texan, and a Southerner) put him beyond the Southern pale. His speech declining re-election, which was too like that given by the Archfiend and Arsonist, William Tecumseh Sherman when he declined to even consider running for president, set more than one head to wagging amongst Democratic Committee members. Johnson's goose was cooked in more ways than one, and he knew it. Not that the other candidates were any better. Richard Nixon was a slimy politico who dripped dishonesty and deceit. Hubert Humphrey campaigned on continuing the Civil Rights movement with gusto, and when he criticized Johnson for sending in the army during the riots in Detroit and Washington after the assassination of Dr. King did not set well with the Conservative South. Nixon promised to end the draft, and opposed desegregation bussing. But he was a Republican! Then there was George Wallace, and his American Independent Party, who wanted to bring back the old days of Jim Crow. He was popular in the Deep South, notably Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. As far as South Carolina and the Landing were concerned, aside from Stubby Richmond and Daddy Smith and his whelps, nobody wanted a return to bigotry and racism. As for Eugene McCarthy, he was dismissed as a buffoon, and a waste of space. The campaign was low-key for the most part, and few paid attention to the politicos trying to drum up votes. Nobody on any of the tickets appealed and frankly people were too concerned about making a living and worrying about their sons in the military. The war had been kind, if that is the proper word, to the Landing and the surrounding county. While there were around eighty boys from the towns, and the county serving in Vietnam, the Angel of Death had not spread his wings, and no body bags addressed to the towns or counties were delivered to Charleston, and no chaplains had come to make the fateful walk up to a rural porch. That all changed two days after the election when an Army captain and the Rev. Henry McIndoo, Pastor of the Shining Spirit Evangelical Chapel made the drive up the dusty lane to the neat, trim, farmhouse of Jonah Martin. The only son of the house, Corporal Lonnie Ray Martin, had been killed in action, his platoon ambushed outside of a nameless village in the Iron Triangle. As word trickled through town, nobody cared about the Presidential Election, nobody cared that Nixon was the President-elect, nobody cared that a Republican would occupy the White House come January. One of us, one of our own, was coming home in a flag-draped coffin. One of our own . . . ****** Death had come to The Landing, and the people rallied. Lonnie Ray had been a popular boy, and played football when in high school. He would never have set the gridiron ablaze, but he was a good, solid tight end, who pulled his weight. He was a typical Southern boy, a country boy, who worked hard on his Daddy's farm, and still managed the time and energy to raise hell with his buddies. He liked to hunt and fish, and wasn't ashamed to ride one of his Daddy's mules into town on Market Day, or to help his mother set up her stall. The Martins had farmed the same quarter section for over a hundred years. They had managed to survive in good times and bad, and Mrs. Martin, whom everyone called Mizz Hettie, saw nothing wrong in offering the best baked goods for miles around at her small stall on Market Day. My father, who enjoyed his food, delighted in her pies and cakes, and proclaimed that the Martin farm produced the best damned fresh eggs he'd ever tasted. Mam Berta, no mean cook herself, would never admit it publicly, agreed, and every Market Day would speak privately to Mizz Hettie, who would put aside fresh-baked cherry and apple pies for her. I did not know Lonnie Ray well. He was a high school senior when I was still in junior high school. He was, however, a great friend to Damian Lee. They played football together, and caroused together, and consoled each other when the girl everyone said was a sure thing turned one of them down. There was a close bond between them, although they were never "close", if you catch my drift. Lonnie Ray had his faults, as we all do, but he loved the ladies, and they loved him. He wasn't promiscuous, and he never bragged or flaunted his conquests. He had no interest in anything but straight, boring, so-called normal sex. His upbringing, his religion, and his respect for his family would not allow him to be otherwise. Damian Lee was devastated, and locked himself in his room when we heard the sad news. When he recovered (as much as he ever did) he left the house and drove away. At first I thought, wrongly, that Damian Lee and Lonnie Ray had been, to put it bluntly, fuck buddies. Not so. When he returned I asked Damian Lee where he'd gone. At first he was close-lipped, and merely said that there was another family in mourning. Intrigued, I pestered him until he swore me to secrecy and told me that he been to visit a girl in Carnes Crossroads, a small hamlet to the north of The Landing. I thought he had a nerve, rushing off to see a girl when one of his best friends was lying in a metal shipping container somewhere between Vietnam and home. Damian Lee shook his head sadly. I had it all wrong. He'd been to visit the girl who had recently given birth to a boy baby, a boy baby who was the spittin' image of Lonnie Ray Martin when he was young. No one, not even Lonnie Ray's parents, knew of the birth. The girl hadn't told Lonnie Ray of the pregnancy, because he'd been on the brink of leaving for Vietnam. She didn't want to worry him, or start a cat fight with his parents. She was Roman Catholic, not Protestant Evangelical, and Lonnie Ray's parents would never approve of her for having their son's child out of wedlock. They would condemn her as a harlot, and Lonnie Ray did not need the added stress. "Did she ever tell him?" I asked Damian Lee. "He had to know!" "She told him in a letter," Damian Lee answered flatly. "He promised that when he got home they'd get married, and he didn't care what his folks said." I remember shaking my head and murmuring, "Poor baby. Growin' up without his daddy." "Not the first," replied Damian Lee, the tears filling his eyes. "And not the last." ****** The rituals of death in The Landing were more or less engraved in stone. When someone died, he or she ended up at Mr. William van Lews establishment. While his assistants worked preparing the deceased, the family would show up, a bundle of clothing in their hands - burial suits or dresses - and "arrangements" would be made, which included choosing a coffin (although Mr. van Lews always called it a "casket", as if it was something containing precious jewels), place of burial and mode of transport. A day or two later the deceased would be on display, and receiving visitors. Usually the coffin was open, except when the deceased had died from a disfiguring illness or a catastrophic accident. On the third day, there would be a church service, followed by burial. There were variables, of course. Country folk, being very traditional in their religion and beliefs, rarely had their "loved one" on display in one of Mr. van Lews' tastefully appointed parlors (always called by him a Chapel of Rest) and many of the farm families had burial grounds somewhere on their property. Here there lay generation after generation of this or that family. Few took advantage of the verdant green lawns of Magnolia Cemetery, and few would use a Chapel of Rest. Loved ones always came home, and were laid out in the front parlor, and carried to their final rest by male members of the family. Those who had the money and no burial grounds, usually arranged for the last journey in a motorized "coach", although the horse-drawn hearse and carriages were very popular. For some reason, the presence of children, unless they were related to the deceased, was discouraged, which did not bother me at all. I had been present at two funerals up to that time, and was stuffed into my Sunday suit, and told to be quiet and show respect for the dead. With Lonnie Ray, I expected the same run of the mill, funeral. He would be laid out at home. His mother and sisters would gather around him, and his father, looking stoic but strong, would greet the stream of visitors that would fill the house and yard. After viewing Lonnie Ray, and offering condolences, with an occasional remark that he looked good, they would move on. The women would gather in the kitchen, emerging to replenish the dining room table with the food they all had brought. The men would gather in the yard, where there was always booze, and after shaking their heads and making regretful talk about how it was shame that one so young had died, they would talk about the crops, the state of the market, and the irresponsibility of the darkies after the riot in Overbridge. What I did not expect was the U.S. Army and the spontaneity of the people. ****** It is well known that the U.S. Army, all the services in fact, never, if at all possible, left a man or woman killed in action behind. They would be transported from the land of their death (in Lonnie Ray's case from the Army mortuary facility in Saigon, where he'd been identified and embalmed) to the land of their birth, always accompanied by an Escort, to Dover AFB where there was a huge mortuary. Here they were prepared for burial, dressed in a tailored, dress uniform and placed in a coffin, usually highly polished wood, and flown if necessary to an airport closest to their home town (unless they were being buried in Arlington), to be met by the undertaker and family, and taken home. What I did not know at the time was that each branch of the Armed Services had a detailed manual, outlining the honors to be accorded their dead, from Generals down to recruits killed in training accidents. In precise language was laid out who received what. Mr. van Lews had a government manual detailing the honors Lonnie Ray was to receive. There would be bearers, a firing party, and a bugler, all commanded by a Sergeant, and the funeral party would be supplied from the soldiers at Camp Stephen Weed. As Lonnie Ray's closet male relative, other than his father, was a cousin, who was all of fourteen, the provision for bearers was a welcome feature. There simply were not enough Martin men to carry him to the burial ground, as was traditional. After the initial notification of Lonnie Ray's death, it was a matter of waiting for him to be brought home. A week, then two weeks passed, until finally word came that he would arrive at Charleston Airport at 5:30 in the evening. Mr. van Lews polished his funeral coach, called for an assistant, and drove off down Hampton Road to the Interstate, the Martins following in a long, black Cadillac supplied by the funeral home, as they did not have a car of their own; the rusty old pickup that they did have was always on its last legs and nursed from death by the combined efforts of Lonnie Ray and his father, and was not thought suitable. My father, as County Coroner, went to the funeral home, there to wait and perform the last formality. He was required to "view" the remains of anyone who had died a violent death, which he would do in the presence of the Military Escort. My mother and Mam Berta began cooking up a storm, making cakes, cookies, a shrimp Creole dish and loaves of bread. I was enlisted to help load the back of the car with the food and then they were off. Mother stopped at the florist shop downtown, and then she and Mam Berta joined what looked like a convoy, heading out of town and southward, to the Martin Farm. Led by the Finch Sisters, who had brought a turkey and a ham, and finished with Atticus Sullivan, who brought enough barbecue to feed half the county, the ladies set up the food on long, cloth-covered wooden tables, commiserated with Mizz Hettie and her daughters and, after a respectful period, went home. We all knew that Lonnie Ray was coming home, and this was when the spontaneity of people came to the fore. The Finch sisters began it. Lonnie Ray was coming home in the dark, and to their way of thinking that was not right so, candles in hand, they gathered their cook, a wizened old black lady, and their maid, equally wizened and older than God, and drove down to the Interstate off ramp. There they parked, waiting. The old "Southern Telegraph" began to work, word quietly being passed from neighbor to neighbor. The local chapter of the VFW heard of what the Finch Sisters were doing, and showed up en masse. There were veterans of every war since the First World War, and Mr. Henry Dodson, who had won the Medal of Honor in the Argonne Forest, left his sick bed to stand unsteadily, leaning on his son, who had won the Navy Cross at Pearl Harbor. The Beidermeyers were next. Two of Mr. Beidermeyers nephews were serving with the Colors, in Vietnam, and he dreaded that one day he would receive a telephone call and the Rabbi would pay a visit. Papa Ravelli quietly closed the Inn's restaurant early and called for his wife and sons to join him. He had no sons in the Army, but Tony was getting older, and a year and a half away from registering for the draft. As the hours passed, the line of people began to grow, stretching up Hampton Road and ending at the entry to Van Lews' Funeral Home. We all went, carrying candles in holders, my Mother and Mam Berta, Mrs. Conyngham and her brood, Sinjin and his parents, the Pegrams and the Cecils. Everyone remained silent, or spoke in quiet murmurs, and even the critters that usually scampered in the fields and edges of the highway. Sometime during this vigil I heard the growl of trucks: somehow word at been sent to Camp Stephen Weed and a group of soldiers, black and white and wearing their Class A uniforms, clambered down and formed up on either side of the road. Later I heard the muted clatter of horse tackle and the squeak of leather as a small group of mule-drawn wagons, passed by. The farm folk, thinking of Lonnie Ray as much more "one of us", and not a townie, would bring him home. As the night deepened the sea of flickering candlelight grew. The cadets of Parker-Semmes appeared and lined the driveway of the funeral home. The waiting crowd was quiet, the silence broken by whispered prayers, and no one objected to the sisters from the convent school who prayed the Rosary in soft murmurs. I stood with my mother and Mam Berta, who was weeping quietly. Despite all their activism, and opposition to the war, her two younger sons had received letters from the local Draft Board and she was terrified that one day she might be waiting for one, or both of them to come home in a metal box. The differences between the races was forgotten and forgiven for a little while as small groups of blacks, led by their pastors, slowly joined the waiting mourners. Around 10:00 a small voice said, "He's comin'" and pointed to the off ramp from the Interstate. The crowd stirred and voices rippled along the line of waiting people. The VFW flags were raised, as were the Colors of the cadets. Old men straightened their forage caps, and stood taller. My mother hugged me close and took Mam Berta's hand, both stifling sobs. As the cortege approached Mr. van Lews, seeing the flames of candles and the dark silhouettes turned on the overhead light in the bed of his hearse and revealed the flag-draped coffin. The sobbing grew louder as the hearse drove slowly up Hampton Road. Hats were removed by the men folk, save for the old veterans, who saluted. It was then that the spontaneity of the moment came in. I do not know who started it, but slowly, quietly, as if we were all in a limitless open-air church, the hymn rose from the voices of the crowd. I heard the words, "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide . . ." taken up and rising upward. Despite my firm conviction that I was no longer a little man, but a MAN, I leaned against my mother and buried my head, weeping. Visions of Philip Charles, who had signed a contract with the Army, might be coming home in a flag draped coffin as early as next year. Damian Lee, whom I loved dearly, would graduate high school in the coming June would, and if he were not accepted by the Citadel, or one of the universities he had already applied to, would be called up. He had told me that he was thinking of heading down to Charleston, to volunteer, rather than wait for the letter from the Draft Board. He was, when all was said and done, a Marigny, the scion of men who had never shirked their duty and in his mind he would rather volunteer than be drafted. Slowly, slowly, the hearse passed by, turning into the driveway of the funeral home. On the wide, open porch my father waited, dressed in his best Savile Row suit, and wearing his medals. He too had a duty to perform, a duty that he never spoke of for the remaining years of his life. ****** The next morning, in bright sunshine, the people returned to line the roadway. Once again they watched quietly as Lonnie Ray Martin was carried home, this time in a polished, glistening, horse-drawn hearse, drawn by four magnificent black horses. Following the hearse was a marching unit of cadets from the military academy and a small platoon of cadets from the Citadel. Flanking the hearse was the bearer party supplied by the Army, six men and a sergeant. Behind the marchers came Mr. van Lews' carriages, both carrying the female members of the family and drawn by pairs of black and gray horses. Mr. Martin, alone, walked directly behind the horse-drawn hearse. It did not matter that he would have to walk five miles. He was bringing his son home. ****** As the cortege wound its way toward the farm where Lonnie Ray had been raised first one, then another, and then another vehicle joined it. There were ancient Ford pickups, rusty and freshly washed, horse and mule-drawn wagons, the Finch sisters' elderly Dodge, and my father's even older and ancient Daimler, each filled with passengers determined that Mr. Martin, and Lonnie Ray, would not be alone. ****** At the Martin farm the cortege passed down the long, dusty drive lined with live oaks. The horses snorted and shook their heads as they passed the family burying grounds. During the night, Mr. Theophilus Monroe, the town gardener, and his sons, had prepared the gravesite, the mound of rich, red Carolina earth they had excavated covered with floral arrangements and wreaths. There were more flowers filling the porch of the house, and the front parlor, where Lonnie Ray would lie for a night and part of the next day. The coffin was carried from the hearse by the Army bearers and placed on the trestle bier. Here Lonnie Ray would lie as the neighbors, the veterans, the town passed by. His coffin would not, could not be opened, and a large photograph of him, a formal portrait taken at his recruit graduation ceremony, rested on a small table at the head of the polished, mahogany box. From the kitchen, and back yard, came the smells of cooking and murmuring as food was prepared for the mourners. Long tables, usually seen only on market day outside of Sully's Café, and now covered with crisp, white linen tablecloths, groaned with food, from ducks and turkeys and chickens to massive bowls of salads and pasta and platters and trays of pastries and cakes. Mr. Sullivan, the owner of the café, and Papa and Mama Ravelli supervised the setting of the tables and none of them would ever mention their generosity, or present a bill. In the South, such things were done quietly, without fuss, as was proper. ****** Lonnie Ray's graveside service was dignified. The Army firing party saluted him and a bugler sounded "Taps". The flag that covered his coffin was folded into the traditional triangle and presented to his mother. Filling the burying ground, and the surrounding fields, the people gathered, dressed in their Sunday best, and no one minded that some of the black frocks showed signs of hasty dying, or that some of the men wore suits years out of fashion, and showing signs of wear. I stood to one side with Damian Lee, holding his hand tightly, praying inside that I would never know the pain and anguish that the Martins felt. ****** After the funeral the people returned to the house, sequestering the family so that they would not see Mr. Monroe and his boys filling in the grave. Only Mr. Martin remained at the gravesite, watching as the shovels of earth thudded against the lid of his son's coffin. He would remain until the grave was filled and covered with flowers. ****** Behind the house, after expressing their condolences and stopping for a bite to eat, the people lingered briefly. Leaving the comforting side of Damian Lee, I joined my friends, Sinjin, the Cecil boys, the Conynghams, the Pegrams and the Ravellis. We were all dressed in stiffly starched white shirts, black suits, ties and polished oxfords, having that morning been bathed, buffed polished and combed to within an inch of our lives. Looking around I saw that everyone who could manage it was present. I was a little surprised to see Daddy Smith and his wife, looking presentable for the first time in years, standing with Stubby Richmond and his son, Simmons. Philip Charles and Charlie Pegram stood with the small group of Citadel cadets, chatting quietly with some of the Army boys who had been part of the funeral party. Much to Sinjin's delight, Pendleton Izard, Jack Mather and Miles Carroll, together with what looked like the entire cadet complement of Parker-Semmes were in attendance. They were all dressed in their tight, brass buttoned Confederate gray coats and starched white duck trousers and I thought it fortunate that the day was cool. The more I looked the more I was impressed with the wonderful turnout. Then I realized that one face was missing. Crazy Betsey was not in evidence. In retrospect, given her politics and opposition to the war, I suppose I should have understood her absence. She was sticking to her guns and principles and attending the funeral of a young man killed in a war she adamantly opposed would be hypocritical. Personally, Crazy Betsey's presence or absence was of little import. I thought her a crazy old bitch and dismissed her from my mind. Not so the town. Given the grief and situation, many thought that politics should have been put aside. While many thought that Crazy Betsey was entitled to her misguided opinions, others did not and with what amounted to the speed of light she was ostracized. I do not know the details, but I did learn that after the funeral she received threats, and much to her disgust, Stubby Richmond arranged for a cross burning on her front lawn. Her "creations", which dotted the front and side yards of her house, were vandalized and smashed. The manager of the supermarket informed her that she wasn't welcome, and asked her tartly to shop elsewhere. At first, Betsey persevered. She was a Southern woman and as stubborn as a mule. However, the screws were applied and tightened when she went to the town hall for her vendor's permit. Aside from the pittance she received as her share of the van Lews funeral home profits, her main, if only, source of income was the sale of her art work to the tourists on Market Day. Much to her anger she was informed, smugly, by the Town Clerk, who issued the permits for the booths on Market Day, that there was simply no room for her and her application denied. People who had known and tolerated Crazy Betsey for years suddenly crossed the street to avoid her. She was deliberately snubbed when she appeared one afternoon, calling on Mrs. Pegram, being informed by the maid hired for the occasion that Mrs. Pegram was not at home, although the sound of women chattering and tea cups clinking was clearly audible to her. She knew that the handwriting was on the wall. Not only was she not received, she had been "sent to Coventry", an exile in the town where she had been born and raised. Refusing to admit defeat, although she knew that it was a losing battle. She tried to sell her work from her front yard, but the Town Constable showed up and gave her a citation for operating an unlicensed commercial enterprise in a residential district. Needless to say her application for a license was denied by the Town Clerk. It took six months, but eventually Crazy Betsey gave up. She had no choice, really, what with being ignored and snarled at whenever she appeared in public. She grew tired of the name calling, of having her house egged and paper bags of dog excrement set on fire on her front porch. The final indignity, at least to her mind, was when Mr. Henry Conyngham, Attorney at Law, representing Mr. William van Lews and the van Lews Funeral Home, appeared and offered her a large sum to sell her share of the business. With even her family, her kin, wanting her out of their lives, she signed the papers, put her house up for sale, and called the Bekins man. Crazy Betsey settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where she found kindred spirits. She organized and attended anti-war rallies and parades, volunteered in the Nixon re-election campaign, sat in at Civil Rights protests and enjoyed a limited success in what passed as the "Artistic" crowd. What she did after the war ended, and the troops came home, I do not know. I only know that when she died many years later no one mourned her passing, not even her kin, and had it not been for a small announcement in the weekly newspaper, hardly anyone would have known that she was dead. ****** Crazy Betsey's fate was in the future, though, and in the days and weeks following Lonnie Ray's funeral I was too mired in grief and disappointment to care about her. Charlie Pegram and I had talked, and I was forced to confront my infatuation for him head on.