Earl Honey Read online

  Copyright © 2022 D.S. Getson

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador

  Unit E2 Airfield Business Park,

  Harrison Road, Market Harborough,

  Leicestershire. LE16 7UL

  Tel: 0116 2792299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 978 1803139 043

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Caution: This story includes references to incest and physical and sexual abuse, which may be triggering for some readers.

  Although inspired by true events, this is a work of fiction. Timelines have been condensed, and names and other identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

  For Earl, who lived it,

  and for Elaine, who urged that it be written.

  EARL, HONEY

  “Blessed is he w ho plants trees under

  whose shade he will never sit.”

  Indian Proverb

  Contents

  Part I: Common Chickweed

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Part II: Sourwood

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Part III: American Holly

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Part I:

  Common Chickweed

  STELLARIA MEDIA: A low weed common along roadsides and fields, often consumed by chickens and wild birds. Although it possesses numerous benefits, chickweed is considered undesirable within horticultural landscapes and great effort is expended to eradicate it.

  One

  Summer 1970 / Summer 1921

  Ever since Pa hit him in the head with the two-by-four, Earl had lived with blinders on. Not real blinders, of course, because that would be foolish. It was his own brain that blinkered him.

  When he was a boy, his ma told him carriage horses wore blinders to keep from panicking on account of all the dangerous things they had surrounding ’em. That made sense to Earl. The world could be a terrifying place. Like a cart horse trotting a well-worn path, he preferred to keep his eyes down, looking neither right nor left to see what might be lurking in the shadows. That didn’t mean he couldn’t learn from his history. A letter from his sister Lucy could tug on his memory in unexpected ways and send him peeking, squinty-eyed, into the past.

  ‘I’ve bought you a plot,’ she writes in her spidery cursive. ‘It’s in the Piney Plains Cemetery, next to Ma. I think she would want you there, close to her heart. (Or whatever is left of her.)’

  He snorts then chokes, leading to a coughing fit that brings tears to his eyes. Dang, that girl can make him laugh. Chuckling, he removes a tattered blue handkerchief from his pocket and blows his nose. His sister Rose used to say Lucy had no couth. Lucy spoke what was on her mind and to hell with folks who judged her for it. Ma preferred other words. She told him once the Hahns were not a squeamish people. They were constructed of mud and straw and, like the earth, unrefined. At the time, he hadn’t known that word. He knows it now. ‘Unrefined’ is April 22nd in the word-of-the-day calendar Harold give to him on his last birthday. He’d read the word and the definition that come with it and knew it to be a description of him and all his kin.

  Setting the letter aside, Earl lights the flame beneath a burner and puts a pot of water on to boil. While he waits for the water to bubble, he pours himself an iced tea and stands at the window overlooking the garden. Maybe he’s of the earth, too, he thinks. There’s nothing he likes better than putting his hands into the dirt, burying a seed in a tiny pocket of soil and watching it grow. There’s no question in his mind that if he and Lucy are unrefined, it’s on account of their pa. He prays every day it’s the only thing that man passed down.

  The day his pa went on trial, Earl hadn’t known many words. He’d barely understood a thing the attorney men were saying. One word in particular buzzed around his head in search of a meaning. He tried using his imagination. Even now, years later, he could picture his pa, mouth wrenched in a grimace, a swarm of black beetles spilling onto Carolina clay. As a boy, the vision scared him and he’d squinched his eyes shut to block it. Which is why, when Pa slammed his fist to the table, Earl hadn’t been prepared. His eyes flew open, a startled yelp erupting from his mouth.

  Heads swiveled to stare, then pivoted back so as not to miss a single second of courtroom drama.

  “I di’nt fornicate with no donkey. Es ist eine dirty lie!”

  From the back of the darkly paneled room, he feels his pa’s rage like a ground tremor rippling its way through the crowd to the spot where he sits, surrounded by family. Well, except for Rose. She’s up front in a special seat. Oh, and Welcome and Faith, who Ma sent away after Rose got knocked up. But Wilhelm, Frieda, Kurt and Orbry fill one end of the pew. No, not a pew, he decides, cause they ain’t in church. A bench. A plain ol’ bench. Next is his ma. And beside him, his little sister fidgets like a jumping bean. Lucy gets anxious when Pa loses his temper. Besides which, they’s all hot as blister bugs. He can feel sweat tears trickling down his ribs. He gazes longingly at the closed window. Judge ordered for windows to stay shut on account of neighbors and newspapermen malingering outside, hoping to hear a bit of juice.

  “And what about the other charge, Mr. Hahn? Is it true your daughter, Rose, is carrying your child?”

  His pa never looks at Rose. He keeps his eyes hard on the man seated in the high box. Earl looks at his sister and notices the way her fingers tremble every time she lifts them from her lap. She’s grown large since he saw her last. Her belly enters the room before she does, making her seem strange to him. She’s always been a tiny thing. She looks different in other ways, too. She’s replaced her overalls with a proper dress. W
here’d she get the dress? he wonders. Maybe the solicitor got it for her.

  “Vat’s my rights, Judge?” His pa points at the man in the black robe then seems to think better of it. The German accent he never lost after arriving in the country thickens each word. “Venn I get sent to da penitentiary, vat vill ’appen to mein property?”

  “While you’re away, someone can be appointed to take charge of your affairs.”

  His pa paces the courtroom, the little finger on his right hand twitching in a rhythm you could set a watch by. Usually, that’s a sign he’s getting ready to punch someone. Earl glances around to see who’s within striking distance. No one he knows. He isn’t sure his pa would hit a stranger.

  Then again, he isn’t sure he wouldn’t.

  The night before, Earl visited him in the jailhouse, delivering a clean shirt and a plate of ham and pinto beans. He found his pa ranting to the officers. The topics were endless but boiled down to one thing: the world had conspired against him. He couldn’t pay the money for his bond. He couldn’t afford an attorney to represent him in court. Earl had stepped back from the bars of the cage, glad his pa’s ire wasn’t directed at him. He stayed silent when his pa began mumbling darkly to himself. Finally, the man calmed, noticing the plate of food set before him and attacking the meal with animal appetite.

  In no hurry to be elsewhere, Earl lingered at the jailhouse so he could return the empty plate to his ma, knowing she needed every dish to feed their family. He may not have been able to put his thoughts into words, but deep down was an instinctive awareness of something his pa wasn’t saying. Something everyone but Pa seemed to know. There wasn’t a man within a hundred miles of Sampson County who would stand up for Reinhardt Hahn.

  Returning his attention to the action before him, he watches his pa grip the edge of the judge’s bench.

  “Und ven I plead guilty, mein kinder – dey… dey vill not haf to listen to a trial. Ist das korrekt?”

  For one swift second, Earl believes something like compassion flashes across the judge’s face. Perhaps he imagines the look, for it comes and goes so quickly, and he’s seated at the back of the room where tiny details can be mistaken.

  “Mr. Hahn, you’ve been charged with four counts of buggery. In addition, you’ve been accused of forcefully and feloniously having carnal relations with your daughter. I have sworn affidavits from your wife and three of your children attesting to these accusations. Even if you plead guilty, I’ll need to learn more regarding the nature of the case in order to determine the extent of the punishment. However,” the judge scans the courtroom as though daring anyone to disagree, “in light of the delicate nature of these accusations, I could be persuaded to hold the penalty hearing privately in my chambers.”

  “In dat case, Your Honor, I vill sacrifice myself for the sake of mein kin.”

  The judge turns to an elderly woman seated at the table below him. “Mrs. Watson, please note for the record the defendant has entered a plea of guilty.” He looks at Pa and motions toward the table across the room. “Since you have forsworn representation, you may take your seat, Mr. Hahn.”

  “Your Honor?”

  Major Butler, who’s seated between his sister and the solicitor, stands and clears his throat. “Before adjourning the court, I would like to have entered into the record the testimony of Mr. Hahn’s neighbors. They can speak to the accused’s general character and behavior. I think it’s important for their statements to be heard before the penalty phase.”

  Earl scratches his nose, leaning forward to see which neighbors have come to speak against Pa. He doesn’t see Farmer Tate. It would take a lot to pull him away from his daily labor. But he observes with interest as a tall, string bean man named Stanley Strickland makes his way to a seat at the front of the room. Earl has a bad feeling about this, on account of his pa poisoning Mr. Stan’s well last year. Earl was with him when he done it, taken a rotted chicken carcass and thrown it into the water with an audible splash.

  A few days later, Mr. Stan’s family took sick, one daughter dangerously so.

  Healthy now, and full of ire, their former neighbor glances toward the back row. Earl responds with a smile and lifts his arm to wave. His ma, catching the movement, presses his hand back to his side and holds it there. He turns to see what’s on her mind, but she continues to face forward, her expression impossible to read.

  One of the attorneys makes his way to the front and pauses beside Mr. Stan. Earl doesn’t know the man and watches curiously as he rocks back on his heels, thumbs hooked through tan suspenders. He hears Frieda whisper about how this man is from Raleigh, brought in to help with the case.

  “Can you tell me how you know the accused?” the man asks.

  “I lived within a hundred yards of Hahn during his first year in Sampson County. I asked him how he came to be in the area. He told me he answered an advertisement posted in a newspaper up north. He took a train down to work for Mr. Sam Tate and lived in one of the sharecropper cabins. Mr. Tate let him work a small piece of land in exchange for tending to the farm.”

  “And what were your observations of Mr. Hahn during this time?”

  “It was concerning, Your Honor. The man clearly didn’t know anything about farming. He couldn’t hitch a horse or set a plow.” He stares at Pa, who hangs on every word, his eyes spitting black fury at the man witnessing against him.

  “I was trying to be neighborly,” Mr. Stan continues. “I showed him what to do and had opportunity to observe his manner of life.”

  “And did he demonstrate an ability to learn?” the attorney man asks. “At any time, did he appear to be crazy?”

  “Oh, Hahn has plenty of sense of some kind, but not a bit of another kind.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following. Can you be more specific?”

  “Well, he’s got good sense about some things, but he don’t have common sense, see? Like, Hahn bought these two mules at auction, but he didn’t know how to feed his stock to keep ’em hale. He lost both animals cause of careless handling, plain and simple. He worked ’em till they plumb gave out. Then he shot ’em in the head and took the skirt off.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He skinned them and sold their hides.”

  “I see.”

  “Hahn told me he canned the meat. Only the meat spoiled. His boy back there tried to eat it and vomited it out every time.”

  Earl’s eyes widen when Mr. Stan points his way. His stomach flips in remembrance and a sour taste fills his mouth. That had been some bad meat.

  “Hahn threw the rest of it in the dirt. I guess he thought it would be good for his garden. Some dogs must have smelled it ’cause they dug up every piece.”

  “And how would you say the man treated his family?”

  “He was harsh, sir, very harsh. I recollect a time his wife, Lizzie Belle, she came to the tobacco barn one morning and I was in there with Hahn. She asked if she might spend the Sabbath. Hahn swore something at her in German. I don’t speak German, sir, but I could tell it was something ugly. And he said… these are his exact words… he said, ‘you can spend it, woman, but spend it tilling new ground’. Later, I saw her going out to the cropper’s field with a hoe and shovel. Also, he showed no regard or affection for the presence of his daughters. He’s a hard man and that’s a fact. Mr. Tate sacked him before he’d worked there a year.”

  Earl nods his head in agreement. He may not recall much but he remembers that day. When Pa got sacked, everyone took the brunt of his anger. His violence was sweeping and irreversible. He glances down as Ma covers her right hand with the left, hiding her own reminder of that day: a jagged line that connects her pointing finger to a puckered spot on her wrist.

  Sensing his attention, she gives him a look he can’t decipher. Neither says a word.

  Two

  Earl is surprised at how many stories Mr. Stan knows ab
out Pa. When their neighbor finally falls silent, the judge stares at Pa where he sits at the long wood table, his body vibrating with emotion.

  “Mr. Hahn, since you are representing yourself, you have the right to cross-examine.”

  “Ist my turn to speak?”

  His pa’s voice contains a tone Earl recognizes. Danger-danger. His heartbeat picks up speed. Time to duck and hide. Or run. Run and run. He casts his eyes around the unfamiliar room seeking a way out. Panic tightens his belly. Reflexively, he grabs hold of his ma and scooches closer. She gives his hand a pat.

  “You may stand and address the witness,” the judge says, his tones measured, his eye sharp on Pa.

  Lucy pokes Earl in the ribs and he leans down to hear her words. “I want to go home,” she says, clearly agitated. She heard the same tone.

  Earl pulls on his ma’s sleeve until she tips her head, her eyes never leaving the action at the front of the room. “Lucy wants to go home,” he says. He doesn’t say ‘me, too’ but he’s thinkin’ it. He knows his pa’s explosions. If one’s coming, he don’t want to be anywhere near.

  “Later. Not yet. You need to hear this. You both do.” She turns to look at him, her eyes full of feelings he’s unsure how to read. She lowers her voice so only Earl can hear. “You’re safe here, hon, but you need to pay attention. Someday, you may want to remember this.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He glances at Lucy and gives his head a shake. She releases a puff of breath and sits back on the bench with her head pressed against the wood. Her face has the same long-suffering expression she wears in church. Like all the grown-ups in the world exist simply to thwart her.

  Earl gathers his attention and focuses on Pa. He’s dressed in his overalls with the oil stain on the bib, but the shirt is clean. Ma insisted her husband shouldn’t shame her further than he already had. The least he could do was show up in court looking presentable. Earl isn’t sure a clean shirt could make his pa presentable. Still, it’s hard to look away from the wiry man as he strides to where Mr. Stan sits in the witness box. Even from a distance, the rage he carries inside shimmers the air around him. He wastes no time lightin’ into his former neighbor.