The Legend of Dell Briggers

By Joe Hilley

Dell Briggers was born in Vidalia, Georgia—or so he said—and I believed him, too. When we were growing up, he was my best friend and we told each other everything. But then he died and at his funeral I learned he was actually from Hot Springs, Arkansas; that his father had never worked at a top secret Navy base; and that his mother h

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dunlavy Gray
• Release date: Feb 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9780999781340

Joe Hilley

Joe Hilley holds a Bachelor of Arts from Asbury College, a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Cumberland School of Law, Samford University. In 1999, he quit the practice of law to write. A lifelong observer of politics and social issues, Joe is the author of five critically-acclaimed novels, including Sober Justice, Double Take, Electric Beach, Night Rain, and The Deposition. He lives in Alabama where he spends his days writing and encouraging others to follow their dreams.

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The Legend

of Dell Briggers

A novella and two short stories by

Joe Hilley

Dunlavy + Gray

Houston

Dunlavy + Gray ©2020 by Joe Hilley

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019957862

ISBN: 978-0-9997813-3-3

E-Book ISBN: 978-0-9997813-4-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations in books and critical reviews. For information, contact the publisher at [e-mail].

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

The Legend of Dell Briggers: A Novella 1

Hornwallace Korlinheiser: A Short Story 147

Nora Mae: A Short Story 215

The Legend of Dell Briggers

A Novella

Dell Briggers was born in Vidalia, Georgia—or so he said—and I believed him, too. Back when we were growing up, he was my best friend and we told each other everything. So naturally, when he said he was from Vidalia, I took it as the truth. It wasn’t until the weekend of his funeral that I learned he was actually from Hot Springs, Arkansas; that his father was a writer and not a civilian who worked for the Navy at a top secret nuclear submarine base; and that his mother had never even been to Hollywood, much less acted in movies or been mentored by Tallulah Bankhead.

The weekend of his funeral was also when I found out Dell had a brother. Well, a stepbrother, but I suppose that counts when you’re deciding in retrospect just how well you knew someone you thought you knew better than you knew yourself. After the funeral, though, I wondered whether I ever knew him at all. And I wondered just how much of a friend I had been to him. I mean, he came to see me when I was sick with scarlet fever, even though the doctor said I shouldn’t see anyone. And when I needed money for lunch at school or to buy a Coca-Cola at the store in the afternoon, he always gave me some and never let me repay him. I don’t think I ever gave him anything except a birthday present once or twice when my mother reminded me. And in spite of being closer to him than anyone, it turned out I didn’t even know the place where he was born. Not the real place. Or the truth about his family. Not the real truth. A friend who knew him like I thought I knew him would have known those things and more.

Dell and I first met when we were six years old. That year my mother held a birthday party for me at my grandfather’s farm. Dell showed up wearing a cowboy outfit with real leather chaps, double holsters, a hat the size of a peach basket, and a pair of cap pistols that were the envy of every kid at the party. Later that day, when I opened my gifts, I found he’d given me an outfit exactly like his.

After that party, Dell and I were inseparable. We went through elementary school together, graduated from high school in the same class, and went off to college together. We roomed together, talked our way backstage at a Bob Dylan concert together (twice), even had coffee with the president—former president actually but that counts, I think. And I was with him when the engine in the car he was driving ran without a battery. Those stories weren’t just Dell’s stories. They were my stories, too.

So naturally, when Dell told me he once had a cat that could talk and that the birds outside his bedroom window awakened him every morning as regularly as an alarm clock, I said, Wow. Nothing great like that ever happens to me. Then Frank showed up at the funeral with all that Hot Springs and he’s my brother talk and poof! Just like that, my whole childhood vanished. Most of college, too. Well, not college. Like I said, I was there for every minute of that. All of those stories were true.

The funeral was also where I met Dell’s partner—his life partner—Steve Atterbury. And that’s when I found out Dell was gay. Knowing that about him wasn’t a problem for me. I’m not saying I’m a cosmopolitan guy. I’m just saying, it didn’t change my sense of devotion to Dell to know that he was in a committed relationship with a man. The thing that bothered me, that scratched me at a place I couldn’t reach, was the sense that Steve had invaded my space. And it wasn’t merely a passing thing but remained as a conflict in my mind even after the funeral—the notion that Steve was an interloper and shouldn’t have been a part of Dell’s life, followed by the unsettling implication that I should have been the one living with Dell. Which was odd considering the way our lives had opened up.

Dell and I lived through a lot together—childhood, high school, college—then he left Tenaca, moved to Chicago, and had an exciting career in advertising. I stayed right there in that tiny little town in Alabama where we grew up, took over the family construction business, and married Babs Oliver from New Market, North Carolina.

In spite of the distance between our two locations, Dell and I stayed in touch through phone calls and letters, then emails and texts. I didn’t use social media and he never suggested I try, but we visited two or three times a year at first, usually in cities where he traveled on business—New York, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Atlanta, places like that. Once we met at a cabin on the Michigan peninsula and spent three days fishing. Spent a weekend in Indianapolis for an automobile race—one of his clients sponsored a car. And we met in Louisville one May for the Kentucky Derby. Then Babs and I had children and the visits with Dell became less frequent. Gradually, the excitement in my life shifted to coaching Little League, attending dance recitals, and hosting cookouts for the Sunday school class—we still had Sunday school back then, though not so much now. Dell and I still talked regularly by phone, sent each other emails and texts, and we exchanged gifts on birthdays and Christmases, but the interaction was not as intense as it had been.

After Dell’s funeral, Babs wanted to stay in Chicago for a few days and see the city. Steve found out about it and asked us to stay with him, then he offered to show us around the city. We spent two days together, much of it in the house where Dell and Steve had lived together. The house was a two-story craftsman on North Beacon Street. Built in the 1920s, it was a house that we would describe as having a lot of wood, which meant it was solid. The kind of solid you noticed when you entered it for the first time and the kind no one would pay to build today. I liked it.

On the first floor, Dell had a study that opened to the left of the main hallway at the front of the house. To the right of the doorway were two large, double-hung windows that afforded a view of the street and allowed natural light to fill the room most of the day. A desk sat near the windows with the chair positioned in a way that allowed the light to fall over it from behind. Bookcases lined the wall facing the desk. The other wall—the one directly opposite the door—held photographs, most of them in black and white and taken at various events, presumably involving Dell’s clients. Two or three of the photos were of him with celebrities. As I studied the pictures, Steve entered the room. This one was his favorite, he said.

When I turned to see what he was taking about he was standing beside the desk, pointing to a photo in a gold frame at the corner of the desktop. The picture was of Dell and me standing together behind my grandfather’s barn. We’d been fishing in a pond in the pasture and my mother made us pose for a photograph. For more than one reason that was a special place for me and the sight of being there with Dell brought tears to my eyes.

I remember that day, I said. My mother took that photograph. I didn’t realize he had a copy.

Two, actually, Steve replied. He had another one just like it on his desk at the office. Dell always smiled when he talked about it. Said you liked to fish so he went fishing.

Ha, I chuckled. I never knew he didn’t like it. We went there several times and he always made us stay at the pond until he caught more fish than I did.

Steve laughed and ran his hand lightly over my shoulder. He was like that to the end.

Once or twice while we were there it seemed as if Dell was with us, too. Not in a mystical way but I heard him in Steve’s voice and saw him in Steve’s mannerisms—the way he said a word or the look in his eye or the things he found to be funny. Hearing and seeing that, I realized how much I missed Dell and the relationship I had wasted in not staying close to him after he moved away. I could have come to visit him more often. We could have gone for walks together and talked about everything, or anything, or nothing at all. Each enjoying the presence of the other the way we did when we were younger and life was full of possibilities. Now, that was impossible and there was no way to get him back. More than once I had to turn away so Babs wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

When the time came for us to go I didn’t really want to leave Chicago, or Dell’s house, but we had no choice. The business back in Alabama wouldn’t run itself. We said our goodbyes and Steve promised to sort through Dell’s belongings and send me anything that he thought might be a reminder of the past. I doubted I would ever hear from him again but appreciated the gesture all the same.

The trip up from Tenaca to Chicago had taken ten hours. We drove it straight through without stopping. Babs didn’t want to do that for the ride back home and insisted we spend the night in Indianapolis. Stopping there made the drive easier, but added an extra day to the trip. It did, however, give me more time to think, which I very much needed to do.

My confidence in Dell and the person I had known him to be had been shaken by the things I’d learned that weekend. Not by the fact that he was gay but by the other things—that he wasn’t really from Georgia, that he had a brother named Frank, that his father and mother weren’t at all the people Dell had said they were—and I wondered how that could have been true and I not know it. The longer ride home gave me time to process some of that.

Later in the week, after we were back home and I was sipping coffee with Babs on the back porch just before dark, my faith in Dell seemed to right itself a little—but only just a little. Like I said, the part about what we did in college—the twins and Bob Dylan and the president—was true. I was there and knew that those things happened just as surely as I knew the fan blade from Dell’s Chevrolet flew off the front of the engine, sliced through a crow in midair, and planted itself in the wall of Winston Green’s barn. I was there when it happened—the fan blade went right by my ear. Whap, whap, whap. Like the sound of a helicopter.

But the stuff he said and did before then—all those stories Dell told when we were still in the sixth grade about being from Georgia and where his father worked and his mother’s career—all of that was hanging in limbo. Especially the one about the birds waking him up every morning instead of an alarm clock. Of all of the stories Dell told, I was disturbed the most to think that one might not be true.

And that’s when I decided to do something about my crisis of faith. That’s when I decided to find out just exactly who Dell Briggers really was.

2

Getting our business straightened out after the trip to Chicago took longer than I expected, but two weeks after Dell’s funeral I finally had a few minutes to spare at the end of the day so I decided to stop by the Tenaca library on the way home from work. I left Daddy with the crew to clean up the job site and started for town in the pickup truck.

While we were in Chicago I became interested in knowing the facts about Dell’s life and while we were driving home from the funeral it seemed like a good idea to find out which of the two versions of his life were true—the one from Dell or the one I’d heard from Frank—but that Monday afternoon as I drove toward town I began to doubt whether I had the energy for it. The closer I got to town, the more I thought it might be better to let him lie in the grave in peace and add the things I’d learned from his stepbrother to the Dell story. Fold them into the fabric of my memory and say, Well, that’s just like Dell to go out with a mystery, and laugh off the incongruities.

Nevertheless, the library was on my way home and I had a few minutes that afternoon and by then I could already see the sign out front. So, I turned from the street into the parking lot and brought the truck to a stop in a space next to the front steps.

The town’s library was located in a house that once had been the home of Clarissa and Morgan Alspaugh, longtime Tenaca residents who died before I was born. When Dell and I were in the seventh grade, my father won a contract from the city to renovate the building. It was a big deal for the town and a big deal for us. I liked the building as an example of his work, but libraries were never my place. Not my most favorite place, or my least favorite place, just not my place at all. During my entire time in high school I only went there once and that was under duress. We had to write a term paper for English class and Mrs. Stennis said we had to cite something other than an article from World Book encyclopedia.

So going to the library to find information about Dell now, after all the years that had passed, seemed more than a little out of place and as I made my way around the truck to the front steps it seemed really out of place. Still, I had heard about people who wanted to research their family history and how the library had been a place for them to start so, like it or not, there I was, at the library to begin my search for Dell. The real Dell.

It was late in the day by then and, it being Monday, I knew the library would close soon. That meant I wouldn’t have much time, but it also meant I wouldn’t be trapped there with Mrs. Smith—which was exactly what I hoped to avoid. Just enough time to get started, figure out what a Dell Briggers project might entail, and determine if I wanted to see it through.

As I came to the steps I glanced up at the building and saw Mrs. Smith staring back at me through a window that looked out onto the parking lot. She was standing at the circulation desk and from the expression on her face I knew she was as surprised to see me as I was to be there. Feeling more than a little awkward and by then very much out of place, I made my way up the steps, pushed open the door, and went inside.

Billy Thomas, she said as I entered the building, I haven’t seen you in here since the eighth grade.

Actually, I replied, it was the tenth, Mrs. Smith.

Yes, she said slowly. I believe you’re correct. Mrs. Stennis made y’all write a term paper that year.

She made her class write one every year.

For a few years, she agreed. Then they switched that assignment up to the eleventh grade. She was right. I had forgotten that point. So, she continued. What brings you in here today?

Dell Briggers, I replied.

Her expression turned somber and she looked away. He was so young, she said in a mournful tone. The tone of her voice seemed odd to me—a little over done for someone who, as far as I knew, never had anything to do with him. The age implication was also disconcerting. Dell and I were the same age and I often thought we looked quite youthful, even after college. Mrs. Smith’s comment suggested she thought otherwise about me and after a moment she looked up in a way that suggested she realized it, too. You know. She attempted to recover. You’re here and he’s not.

We were getting off to a bad start. Yes, ma’am, I replied.

What about him brings you here?

I was wondering what I could find some information about him. Where he came from and all.

Georgia, I think. Her eyes darted away as she spoke and for a moment I saw something that looked like anger.

Well, I said, that’s what he always said. But now I’m not so sure about that.

She looked in my direction again. You think he wasn’t from Georgia?

That’s just it. I don’t know.

Why the sudden doubt?

I met his stepbrother at the funeral.

Stepbrother? Mrs. Smith frowned. Dell Briggers didn’t have a stepbrother.

That’s what I always thought but there he was, right there at the funeral. And Dell’s mother didn’t deny it.

Mrs. Smith looked surprised. Dell’s mother was as the funeral?

Yes. Why? You thought she was somewhere else?

Mrs. Smith had a disapproving look. Dell’s mother has Alzheimer’s. She’s over in the home at Bright’s Mountain.

Now I was the one with a frown. The woman I saw at the funeral was his mother. I’ve known her since forever.

The woman you’ve known since forever was Dell’s aunt.

My mouth fell open. His aunt?

Yes. And the man you knew as Dell’s father was his uncle. The aunt’s husband.

He was raised by his uncle and aunt?

Yes. The aunt was his mother’s sister.

But they seemed just like a family.

Yes. Quite so.

Her response left me frustrated but I kept going. And Frank? The guy at the funeral who said he was Dell’s stepbrother. Who is he?

The son of the aunt and uncle.

Mr. and Mrs. Briggers?

Yes.

So, he is—

Dell’s cousin.

But I’ve never seen him before.

Again her eyes darted away as if something about the topic made her uncomfortable. That’s because he was born out of wedlock and raised by his grandparents.

This is a little confusing.

More than a little. And imagine how Dell must have felt.

How do you know all of this?

I’m a librarian. I know things. She glanced away and her voice became even more officious than before. Come on. What you need is over here.

Mrs. Smith came from behind the desk and led the way to the opposite side of the room. Behind a row of bookshelves we came to a closet and she opened the door, then pointed to the top shelf. Take that down. A cardboard box sat on the shelf. I grabbed it, slid it out until the end of the box rested against my chest, and stepped back.

Set it over here, she said. I followed her between the rows of books to a table and placed the box on it. This box, she said, has copies of the Tenaca Times from 1968. Look through it and find the issues for June. I don’t remember the exact date you need, but there’s an article in here from sometime in June. Look through the papers from that month for an issue with a headline about an explosion over at Bright’s Mountain.

An explosion?

At a coal mine, she explained. Doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re looking for but that’s the issue you need. The one that begins with that headline. The article you need to read is inside that issue.

Tenaca was bounded by mountains to the east, the last vestiges of the Appalachian foothills. Of those in our county, Bright’s Mountain was the tallest. It was riddled with seams of coal, the mining of which had been the area’s largest source of employment for many generations. Much of that coal had been mined out and only a few active mines remained, but back in the day it was a booming business. The article to which Mrs. Smith directed me was about an incident that happened in 1968. A spark from one of the mining cars set off an explosion. The resulting cave-in trapped a dozen miners deep inside the mountain. Rescuing them required at a two-week operation that included expansion of an air shaft, then cross-tunneling to their location. Two of the miners died before they were reached, but the remaining ten survived. People still talked about it even now.

Having been raised to be a good little boy, I did as Mrs. Smith said and sorted through copies of the newspaper. They were musty and once or twice I stopped to sneeze, but it didn’t take long to find the newspapers from June and rather quickly after that I located the one she was talking about. Across the top of the page, in big bold letters, was the headline, Coal Mine Explodes.

Here it is, I said.

Mrs. Smith returned to the table where I was seated. Okay, she said. Now, look on the last page of the first section.

That issue of the paper wasn’t very thick, about twenty pages total. Finding the end of the first section was only a matter of turning two pages. As I spread the newspaper flat on the table, Mrs. Smith reached over my shoulder and tapped an article with her finger. Read that, she said. The article was entitled, Local Man Arrested.

According to the article, a man named Odell Norton from Tenaca was arrested in Atlanta that month while participating in an anti-war protest. He faced several charges and was set for trial later that year. Okay, I said. Odell Norton was arrested in Atlanta. What about it?

The case was delayed but they tried him the following year. You won’t find anything about it in newspapers from around here, but that’s what happened. He was convicted and spent a year in prison.

Okay.

Apparently, prison wasn’t as bad as it’s been made out to be because Odell had a lot of time on his hands. To pass the time he started reading. When he was released, he moved to Florida and began writing.

Suddenly I understood what she was saying. Wait. Odell Norton?

Yes.

The writer?

One and the same.

Odell Norton was a bestselling author of Southern fiction. I wasn’t an avid reader but I had read several of his books and found them enjoyable. Apparently other people liked them, too, because he was very well known, though until that moment I never knew he had a connection to Tenaca.

I never knew he was from around here.

I don’t doubt it. Mrs. Stennis didn’t care for him and didn’t require her students to read his work. And some others didn’t like him, so no one else made a fuss over him.

Some others?

Powerful people. She had a dismissive tone. Never mind about that.

I’ve read some of his books.

Really? Her voice indicated she had serious doubts.

Is he still alive?

Yes. Getting up in years, but I think he’s still alive.

Where does he live?

Last I heard, he was still somewhere down in Florida.

By then, the moment caught up with me and I became suspicious. Why are you telling me about Odell Norton?

Mrs. Smith scowled at me. Haven’t you been paying attention?

Yes ma’am.

Odell Norton, she repeated. The tone in her voice suggested the name was supposed to mean something special to me now.

Yes, I replied, still bewildered. The writer.

And what was Dell’s name?

Dell Briggers, I said.

All of it, she snapped. What was his whole name?

I thought for a moment, then slowly shook my head. I don’t know, I replied. And that was true. I knew what he wanted on a hamburger. Knew the kind of books he enjoyed reading—he was a much better student than I. Even knew his favorite color—which was blue, by the way. But I was clueless about his formal name.

Mrs. Smith placed both hands on her hips and glared at me. You don’t know?

No, ma’am.

All these years you’ve been his friend—maybe even his best friend—his best friend in the entire world—and you don’t know his full name?

She seemed more worked up about it than the moment required. No, ma’am, I said meekly. I don’t think I ever heard it.

And you didn’t think to ask him?

No, ma’am. I never did. I was feeling guilty about it now but not sure why, except that I already felt guilty about not knowing the things I’d