Southern Legitimacy Statement:
“Here lately, it appears that nobody cares much about anything. Leastwise it’s the way I see it.
When was the last time you heard a youngan say thank you, or please, or here let me do that for
you? It’s been a while for me. My own children don’t even make them efforts and I know it
ain’t because they don’t know better. They know better. I seen their mother bore it into them
like I drill a hole for the wood beams at the church. They know what to do, what to say, but they
just choose, and I mean choose, not to do it. Why you reckon that’s true? When I was growing up
over in Horry if you didn’t mind your manners around the grown ups you got reminded of it real
fast.”
Elwood Thompkins was holding court around the stove at the Quick Pik on a cold January
morning.
The regulars were all there, too, listening like it was the first time Elwood gave his lecture. He
hadn’t yet notices that I was there, home from college for the holidays It had been a while since
he had seen me but figured he would never forget that nuisance of a boy who brought his band of
8 th graders over to his freshly-plowed fields to stage their annual fall dirt wars. I neve met a big
clog of black dirt I didn’t like since I was the dirt war leader and by far the best logger of the dirt
grenades. Hearing him brought back a memory of Mama harping of Daddy one morning when
he started to downgrade the young ones at Sunday school. When she had heard enough, she said,
“Franklin, you’re beginning to sound like Elwood Thompkins, and I know you don’t want that.”
He’d mumble a bit, and barely get it said, “you’re right about that.”
Finally, Mr. Thompkins took a breath and saw me standing at the back of the store. “Well, look
whose home from his learnin’, George Watkins is here everybody. Say hey.”
That gave me the opportunity to say what I’ve always loved to say as a true southerner and feel it
to be the perfect way to greet people, and I said it, “All yall. How all yall doing?”
Imprint
The classic old homes in the historic wealthy residential district of Philadelphia had no doorbells or buzzers. The old fashioned uniquely designed knocker was the accepted way of announcing oneself at the front door. There was a knock.
George Raymond Sullivan opened the door with a greeting, “Hello. You must be Chief Inspector McCoy?”
The middle-aged slightly balding six–foot-two, dressed in proper suit and tie man agreed.
“Yes, I am he, indeed. And you, sir, must be Mr. Sullivan.”
“Yes, I, too, am he indeed. Please come in, Chief Inspector. Join me in my office. I have prepared some tea and coffee for us, or perhaps you’d rather have a beer beverage?”
“Coffee sounds just right, thanks, Mr. Sullivan..
They sat in opposite upholstered wingback chairs after George poured coffee in mugs.
“Please call me George, Inspector. I asked for the topmost policeman of Irish descent and I’m pleased it is you. There are pieces of our heritage that might help the conversation. For example, understanding the meaning of Sullivan in Gaelic. I have asked you to come for a report of a crime and listen to my confession. A bit unusual for you, I’m sure.”
“Many of my experiences have been most unusual, George. I’m ready to listen.”
“Some history. My younger brother and I were unofficial orphans, Inspector. We barely knew our parents. Our father was an international salesman, and our mother was in foreign services. They were gone from this, our home then and now, and we were left in the hands of an aunt and uncle, both of whom had challenges of their own, substance abuse and infidelities which kept them busy and not involved with the lives of my brother and me. From the time I was seven and brother Richard was four, we were pretty much raising ourselves, working hard to determine how life for us worked. We were affectional and comforted each other in our loneliness. We were not shy around each other and found fun and freedom going without our clothes most of the time at home. In our innocence and curiosity about our bodies, we discovered in our exploring when I started touching Richard on his penis, that he liked it, and he liked for me to play with it. As discovery goes as we aged, Richard gained erections and eventual ejaculation, and then, to hold his penis in my mouth which he liked very much. Too much, of course. As the years grew and as we became more knowledgeable about taking care of ourselves, depending less and less on any adult supervision, Richard and I continued with the pleasing of selves in times of stress and discomfort and there was plenty of that. Mother and father divorced and left us in a non-caring environment even though we did get the basics of education, food, and shelter. He did not ‘do’ me, but I continued ‘to do’ him into adolescence, and not until I went off to college did the behaviors change. Are you with me, Inspector?”
“I’m afraid I am, yes. Maybe I could have that beer now?”
“Of course.” He reaches toward the desk and retrieves a can of beer from a bowl of ice. He takes a tall glass from a shelf and begins to pour for the Inspector.
“Out of the can will be ok for me, George,” Inspector McCoy suggests.
To which George responds appropriately for him, “I wouldn’t think of letting you resort to a can, Inspector, certainly not in this discussion.”
He pours oh so correctly and hands the glass to the Inspector along with a small napkin.
“To continue with my confessional, I was not to lead a life of my own separate from Richard. He had become so attached to me as his mother, father, lover, caregiver, that he could not leave me alone. It took me some time to move on from what I determined was a ritual childhood habit, but Richard was struck down by the addiction and could not live a normal life. He could not have relationships with men or women, hoping one might serve his need. He could not have a homosexual relationship because he did not reciprocate. He could not hold a regular job for long, usually because he had to leave to follow me wherever I went. I tried to live in many places, even got married, but Richard was so desperate to find me, ‘to do’ him whenever his need arose and that was often. Still with me?”
“A question. Why did you continue to enable him? Did you actually go through the ejaculation process to its completion?”
“I could not refuse him. I tried, but whenever he found me, the past would pull me back in to keep him sane. No, I could no longer hold his climax. I began to secretly spit into a pre-prepared handkerchief. I was all-in during the young days but could not continue as I aged. I finally moved back here, home, two months ago. I didn’t tell him, but he found me, and he was in the worst self. It was more than an addiction; that and compulsion, and no therapy had even come close to helping him. His Gaelic “Dark Eyes” had consumed his soul with darkness. I took him in, of course, but refused him a ‘to do.’ He became desperate and, I’m afraid, clinically mad, and I hated him then and had to end it, bring his dark madness to a close. So, I am wanting punishment for this lifelong crime of child abuse and for the crime for which I asked you to hear.
“Which is?”
“I’ve killed my brother. I shot him, not wanting him to suffer any longer. I hated who he had become. He’s in his bedroom.”
Chief Inspector McCoy could hardly speak.
“You, you killed your brother because you had come to hate him?”
“No. I killed my brother because I had finally come to love him.”
