Blanche of Apalachin: A First Novel

By Rod Lee

A woman succumbs to old age, in 1982.
Thirty years later, Samantha Beatrice "Sweet Bea" Jakes, in need of material for a school essay, asks her grandfather "who was the greatest person that ever lived?"
She does not get the answer she expects.
Instead of "the usual suspects--prophet, explorer, philanthropist, architect, statesman, inventor, athlete, soldier, humanitarian, philanthropist, firefighter, cop, doctor, nurse--she is told the story of a little known, Scripture-quoting, Satan-defying Pennsylvania farm girl-turned-disciple for Christ named "Blanche."
In this first work of fiction from author Rod Lee, Sweet Bea's initial disappointment at Ernest Jakes' surprising choice turns to awe and admiration as she hears of the faith that sustains Blanche Baxter through a series of trying physical and emotional challenges.
Sweet Bea is moved to tears of joy and sorrow upon learning of Blanche's survival after being bitten by a deadly snake in her native Keystone State, of her years of witness for "my Lord and Savior," of her uncanny mastery of prayer and the piano and hymn singing, of her run-in with mobsters gathered for an historic Mafia "convention" in Apalachin, New York, of her grief at the passing of one son and the betrayal of another, and finally of her reaction to a treacherous act attempted by a son-in-law whose heart is filled with malice toward her.
By the time Ernest Jakes' account of Blanche's soaring life reaches its tense, shocking and ironic conclusion amid a major earthquake at the base of California's San Gabriel Mountains, young Sweet Bea realizes that she was wrong to dismiss this plain-spoken, stalwart Christian woman so quickly.
She is left with a second question, even more pressing than the first:
Who was "Blanche of Apalachin?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477262870

Book preview

BLANCHE

OFAPALACHIN

A first novel

Rod Lee

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AuthorHouse™

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© 2012 by Rod Lee. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/23/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6288-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6287-0 (e)

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Contents

I An Old Woman’s Final Hours; ‘I Am Weary, Let Me Rest’

II ‘Sweet Bea;’ And A Question That Gave The Narrator Of This Tale Pause

III Certain People Come To Mind As Ernest Mulls A Response That His Granddaughter Will Find Acceptable

IV Sweet Bea Expresses Her Disillusionment With Ernest In A Comical Way

V Ernest Introduces Sweet Bea To Blanche, A Frisky Child; And Describes Her Close Encounter With Satan In The Guise Of A Serpent

VI Ernest Shares With Sweet Bea Four Reasons Why Blanche Is Deserving Of A Seat On The Throne

VII Blanche Marries And Moves With Her Husband To Apalachin, New York, Unaware Of The Trials That Await Her There

VIII. Sweet Bea Hears Of Blanche’s Ministration To Her Sickly Son Mel, And Her Defiance Of Mobsters Who Are Up To No Good

IX Ernest Concludes His Account Of ‘The Raid On Apalachin;’ And With That, He Adds Mention Of The Fate Of Mel Baxter

X Sweet Bea Learns Of A New Tragedy That Rocks Blanche’s Christian Life

XI Ernest Tells Sweet Bea How Blanche Coped With Jimmy’s Betrayal By Looking For Solace In The Parable Of ‘The Prodigal Son’

XII Peg Baxter Meets Georgie Hough, Who Blanche Immediately Recognizes As A Wretch

XIII In An Ironic Twist, The Baxters Go To Live With Their Daughter Peg In California; There, Georgie Plots Revenge On Blanche

XIV How Georgie Undertook A Desperate Attempt To Strip Blanche Of Her Sanctity, And Render Her Powerless

Epilogue.

About The Author

In joyful and loving remembrance of Blanche Blossom

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

PSALM 27:1

A story based on certain actual events

I

AN OLD WOMAN’S FINAL HOURS;

‘I AM WEARY, LET ME REST’

July, 1982

Endicott, New York

The pale-faced blond-haired blue-eyed man sitting in the hospital foyer had always hated flies. This was true even before he knew the dirty little secret about them, that they were a transmitter of some of the vilest diseases on earth: typhoid, cholera, dysentery, TB, anthrax.

How they disgusted him!

He could not think of any single thing that could be worse than a horde of flies. Well, maybe maggots.

Books that didn’t make any sense frosted him too. Some of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s and Henry James’ essays were harder to follow than the paths of a corn maze. Turn here? Turn there?

And then there were the times when he inexplicably cut himself shaving . . . the allergies . . . clothes he bought off the rack that didn’t fit right . . . the bombastic boss of an editor who was forever tinkering with the front page, and forever lording his superiority over subordinates . . . the Volkswagen 411 that kept stalling . . . on and on and on.

Gripes, he could give you gripes.

But flies, they were in a class onto themselves. Like lepers; or leeches.

At home, he intended to remove from his domain every one that buzzed back and forth; that lighted on his bare skin—or on a lamp shade, countertop, window, bed spread or screen door.

He would use whatever was handy to swat them dead: a newspaper; a towel; anything he could grab that would do the job.

There wouldn’t have been enough notches on his belt, to mark the eradication of the ones he’d done away with—so far.

He didn’t wait for them to come to him, either. Spotting one, he would scramble to his feet and chase it as if on a search-and-destroy mission, rustling curtains to pry it from its perch, stalking it from room to room, approaching it shoeless and then standing mute and statue-like until the hammer could be brought down: splat!

His prowess as an assassin had developed to such an extent that he didn’t need the typical killing mechanisms any more. The palm of his hand would do. He even took pride in not having to go looking for something other than that, for the task.

Still they kept coming back.

Now here he was in the same building in which he’d been born thirty-seven years earlier, but under far different circumstances. Instead of the proclamations of joy that had accompanied his arrival as the first of four sons of a carpenter and a homemaker, there was quiet except for the hum of the overhead fans—and the specter of the flies.

"Who let them in?"

They were pestering the forehead and neck and nose and cheeks of the shrunken, heavily wrinkled woman as she sagged like a deflated balloon in the wheelchair next to him—struggling for breath. She was awake one minute and asleep the next. The flies were uninvited and unwelcome and they added another layer of misery to a situation already made unbearable by her weakened state and the heat.

What heat! They were drenched in it.

He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and loosened the shirt’s top button and his tie in an attempt to garner some relief from the sweatbox-like conditions. She was wearing one of those infernal sleeveless hospital gowns that tie in two places in the back. It was all he could do to avoid telling her how much he disliked them. Surely someone could have invented a better piece of clothing than this for patients to put on, he thought. He couldn’t understand why some mastermind hadn’t thought of a one-piece gown that slips over the head so that the backside isn’t exposed.

Is that so hard to do? he thought.

It was a pet peeve of his.

He would have engaged her in conversation about this problem except that he knew she would dismiss it as of no consequence.

So now he added the gown to the flies as something he would not put up with. Flies; hospital gowns; traffic jams; television commercials; arthritic joints; the Dallas Cowboys . . . but most of all the flies.

He got in these moods sometimes; feeling persecuted.

She never did.

He had seen her anger flash, like far-off lightning that flickers against an austere sky and then disappears so fast that you ask yourself if it was real or a figment of your imagination. But he had never seen her complain. That was the truth. The little annoyances that popped up to cause him distress she would let slide off her: the cuts and colds and toothaches that are as much a part of life as waking to a new day. They didn’t cling to her like ticks or the tassels of a weed, the way they clung to him.

Fear not, neither be discouraged, she would say, quoting from Deuteronomy.

Her fortitude, after all she had been through, was something of a miracle in its own right.

Even now she would not submit to self-pity.

The hospital, sculpted into the side of a hill above which stood a once-popular necking area called Round Top, was, like her, now fading. The years—not that many (he thought) since it had opened to ecstatic reviews in 1927—had left it with the usual signs of decay: a dulled exterior, chipped paint, worn hallways: a general beaten-down appearance. It would live on, however, as housing for senior citizens.

The man guessed he was glad this was the case. The hospital had been good to his family. He had even survived a tonsillectomy there when he was three or four. You almost bled to death, his mother had told him. Even now, he thought he could remember someone placing a mask of ether over his face. It has to be one of my earliest memories, along with riding a tricycle on the sidewalk on June Street in West Endicott, he thought.

His memories of her, this woman, were also vivid.

He was reluctant to let her go.

He stroked her white hair, which was matted with perspiration.

He decided to whisper a prayer, inept as he was at it.

Please. Ease her on. She deserves respite from suffering here at the end, for the good works she has done in Christ’s name.

Her sympathy was entirely for him, however. He could tell it even before she spoke.

Go, dear, she said. I don’t mean to keep you.

Once again she had accepted God’s will. Time after time, she had bowed to His directives.

No, the man said.

I’ll stay a bit longer.

He lifted a cup of water to her parched, cracked lips.

She drank, her head bobbing.

She shifted her weight, with difficulty. She lifted a hand, the back of which revealed telltale evidence that she had lived a very long time—like the rings of its trunk would announce how many years a tree had been rooted in place.

Feebly, she placed her hand on his arm.

With clarity and not a shred of remorse in her voice, which, he concluded, stood in sharp contrast to what should have been her state of mind given her dire circumstances, she spoke again.

I will be so glad when my King takes me home, she said.

II

‘SWEET BEA;’ AND A QUESTION

THAT GAVE THE NARRATOR

OF THIS TALE PAUSE

Thirty years later (February, 2012)

Linwood, Massachusetts

Samantha Beatrice Jakes—Sweet Bea—chose the morning after her grandparents had watched Randy Travis on TV to ask. It was also Saturday—the day before Super Bowl XLVI—and that might be the reason Ernest Jakes was unprepared for her query. Part of his mind was still trying to wrap itself around the Roman numerals being used to signify which game this was in the sequence. He had loved Roman numerals since childhood; as in fact, he had loved anything and everything having to do with Italy—for reasons unknown.

It may have had something to do with the