Killing Mister Watson

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.

EDGAR J. WATSON

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.

But Lucius said in a flat voice, 'To change his name could only mean Eddie had something he should be ashamed of.' And he gave that old lady a hard look that challenged her to say just what she meant right then and there. One hand flew towards her throat but she made no sound. It was only later that she said to Walter, That younger boy has something of his daddy in him, don't you think?

I was very proud of both my brothers, and grief came quietly, at last, at last.

Peter Matthiessen

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[1] Not her real name.