Beauty from Ashes

By David Roller

Beauty from Ashes is fiction and is a compilation of stories written for the author's wife as she battled leukemia. This compilation is a continuation of the author's book, Harbingers of Spring, in that it presents the growth of a festival over several decades in the Sweetwater Valley of Brown County, Indiana. This area is a location where the author spent his childhood years, where his grandfather's farm was located. There is no festival located there, only beauty, and the site still has the location of the author's grandmother's house where it sat before it burned to the ground. Rebuilding it would be senseless, as it originally sat too close to the road. An attempt was made, herein, to present a story of equality and diversity and describe what that might look like if all concerned strove for the same goal. Ugly is a presentation of racism concerning the mother of the author's childhood girlfriend. The mother presents total unbiased interactions, except toward one neighbor child. Isaiah 61 is used to outline the ups and downs of progress toward a multifaceted goal. In every situation and every confrontation, the author attempts to show an actuality of beauty developing from conflict and cruelty. It presents the human predicament through the inclusion of the most radical and diverse characters the author can imagine, all working together to achieve happiness. The forbidden love between a mixed child and a White child is a continuous thread throughout the book, with an almost conclusion, when in old age and helplessness, he is murdered and dies being cared for by his lover. The conclusion is from Genesis 1:2, Job 33:4, and Numbers 27:16 regarding the Hebrew word Ruach, wherein God's name is referred to as the sound of a breath, wherein we whisper God's name in every breath of our life and close our life with one final recognition of our living God. Love triumphs.

This is the author's third book. He also wrote Butterfly Wars and Harbingers of Spring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889605782

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Beauty from Ashes

David Roller

Copyright © 2023 David Roller

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88960-571-3 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88960-578-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Characters

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Epilogue

About the Author

For the children forced into slavery along our southern border. It is a thing to argue if one thing or another is wrong. Hopefully, we can choose what is best for us from one political doctrine or another. If there is one child or thousands destroyed in this way, surely we can agree that this one thing is horribly wrong. Surely, if we move to fix something that is hurting all of us, this is the thing we will send every uniformed authority after to stop it. I don't know how we will ever stand before God and account for ourselves doing nothing about this. I spent thirty-seven years helping to care for innocent children. I thought I did good. Let's make the law say life without parole for traffickers of children. Let's give these children the rights of citizens, with every benefit that implies. In Jesus's name. Amen.

Bestow on them a crown of beauty,

Instead of ashes.

—Isaiah 61:3

Characters

Aaron—son of Peach. Trucker.

Abba Levi-Sochet—buyer for the kosher market. Helps Annabelle sell the same steers twice.

Alejandro—Argentine grocer. Pickling expert. Ships blood, hooves, hides, and offal to Mexico for byproduct profit. Banker for Latinos. Right hand of Esteban.

Ann—daughter of Maneus Wood. Conceived in a petri dish. Hirsute victim of childhood hormonal therapy. Navy SEAL Nuderelvis's mother. Operated a tunneling machine (mole). Sank a one-mile-deep hole in the Arctic and set charges to crack the Earth's mantle to capture escaping heat. Operated in Afganistan and Xinjiang as a Yeti. Instrumental in bringing American football to Xinjiang. Sets explosives in China and the South China Sea pending conflict. Defeats the Chinese Navy in Taiwan with Liam. Vamps Liam into an affair while deployed.

Annabelle—Sissy-Lynn's mom. Tommy's wife. Made a great fortune both legally and illegally. Champion Barrel Racer coached by Tommy.

Aoibheann—Irish cousin. Means radiant beauty. Sounds like Steven.

Asher Wilson—botanist in Wolfpen Hollow. Married Shindi. Opened the Pine-Willis Academy for educating rescued sex trade girls.

Audrey—protagonist. Beautiful. Inherited Esteban's fortune. Geneticist. Found gold in the Wolfpen Hollow. Married Justin. Mother of Daphne. Moved civilization to Brownville Texas and south. Beat the shit out of Nuderelvis with her bare hands. Made the desert bloom. Dug the hellhole for a place to put Cartel members, one mile deep. Opened up the tundra in Quebec to development. Joined her fortune to the biggest Banker in Canada to further her cause (Improving the lives of the Otomi) into perpetuity. Opened the Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean. Divided the fortune under three female heads in Mexico, the US, and Canada. Began the liberation of the Uyghurs in China. Fated to die altogether too young from the experience of being raped fifty times a day while a prisoner of Nuderelvis. United rescued sex trade girls under a banner of freedom and unity.

Babette—Pierre's interpreter. Tricks Pierre into letting her marry Eddy Carty. Mother of Audrey.

Barbie—friend of Sissy-Lynn. From Peoga. Interpretation from Spanish: a gray head and a fine ass.

Berry Pew—spoiled preacher's kid who hit on Sissy-Lynn and nearly got his ear bit off.

Big John—only child of Danny and Ann.

Bikers and Biker Babes—Everett's old gang. Stayed loyal to him after he became a large-animal vet. Caused him immeasurable grief fighting with the Dykes Bikers over the side-by-side presence of Harleys and Kawasaki motorcycles. Took Harleys to Ireland.

Bill Graham—revivalist. Preacher extraordinaire. From the Old Era Church. Fired for embezzling. Creates a radio ministry and becomes a missionary to Huehuetla, Mexico. Audrey's idol. Black sumo wrestler. Married a widowed Season Lightly. Disabled vet. Bama Boy and expert square dance caller. A mule man's mule man. Learns the Holy Whine from Uncle Lon (Billy Rivers) Lewis. Skinned alive by the Cartel in Mexico.

Bobby (Boo, Koo, Bobby, Dinky, Dow)—ex-SEAL. Ex-WWF. Stagecoach driver. Able to move a rice paddy overnight to disorient the enemy. Was only once able to take Danny in three. Destined to go down while fighting a polar bear, mano a mano. Charged the Applebaum Cartel, taking dozens of hits, and delivering major damage. Swore blood revenge on the Applebaums over infanticide. Married once to an Indian maiden, Brand New. Jealous of her preference for Japanese businessmen. Adoptive father to twelve unknown babies he buried with his name at Mt. Zion Church. Father of Iddy-Biddy-Bebe-Boy. Father of Keven. Father of What The, who looked like Hoss Cartwright when Bobby was expecting him to be oriental. Adoptive father of Jacyn-Gladys (Mosaic Down's girl, Applebaum victim). Gave himself a ransom for two kidnapped little girls. Gave his heart to God under Bill Graham. Studied the ministry at the feet of Rev. Spurge.

Bootsie—my sister.

Brand New—Otomi maiden. Operated a tunnel boring machine (Mole). Married Bobby. Recognized Bobby's sumo wrestling as foreplay. Sumo wrestler. Sumo wrestling teacher in Ireland. Coinvented sumo tag team wrestling. Invented the red sumo wrestler diaper. Destined to go up against the Teacher's Union member Letta Tarr for striking oil at Trafalgar and burying the whole town in an oil spill. Remarried to Big John, twenty years younger, who fought for her hand.

Bud Applebaum—son of Bud. Grandson of Bud- Evildoers. For Evildoers shall be cut off (Psalm 37:9).

Bernice—wife of Disabled Veteran, Shelly. Deeds 320 acres to Sissy-Lynn. Careful of snakes when fetching eggs.

Cannery Row—enclave of gay men at the rodeo grounds. Tailer's. In high demand for sewing skills, embroidery, and tatting. Opted for tight-fitting jeans, and told the Doir House to kiss their collective asses.

Captola Tine—Melvin Tine's mother.

Danny—Japanese Hawaiian Sumo Wrestler. Grizzley Adam's wannabe. Sawmill operator. Stagecoach driver. Introduced the ghillie suit to the Ladies' League to make them invisible. First convert of Bill's new ministry. Pianist. Partner of Bobby based upon his weight (400), and Bobby's weight (640) (640 divided by 400 equals 1.6, which is the golden ratio). Bobby couldn't deny it. Half of a comedy team. Choked down about a ton of Pierre's dirty Cajun rice and was too nice to say anything about it. Dealt with legally by regular mail, because he was intimidating to the court. Married late to Ann because she was the right size. One child, Big John.

Daphne—daughter of Audrey. Marries Jack. Manages Philanthropies of Aoibheann in Ireland.

Della—daughter of Uncle Lon (Billy Rivers) Lewis. Wife of Sheriff Sherif Potter.

Deutz—twin of Tucker. Country Music Hall of Fame, Greatest Guitar Licks. Convicted drug dealer. Caused Tucker's death. Greatest mule showman, extant.

Doctors, lawyers, dentists, bankers, and Plumber's old-timey golfers—husbands of the Ladies' League. Sit around postulating and drinking and fighting over imagined slights in playing golf. Major investors. Responsible for bringing Irish Cob horses to Wolfpen Hollow, hoping to get laid.

Dykes Bikers—enclave of lesbians at Wolfpen Hollow who specialized in sprint car racing at Paragon. Faithful entries into the parade and big hat contest, though rarely winning. This was made clear when a man from Cannery Row won with a big hat made entirely from Peeps' marshmallows.

Eddy Carty—mother was Lovell and Tommy's sister. Inherits half of Tommy's money. Uncle of Traveller girl, Effie. World welterweight champion. Traveller. Advised by Tyson Fury. Advised by Champ Chaney and Marvin Johnson. Role model was Tippy Larkin, fastest hands in boxing. Married to a Cajun girl, Babette.

Effie—Traveller girl. Eddie's niece. Marries R'emy, a melungeon boy. Inherits half of Tommy's money, $20,000,000. Bow hunter. An example of how to milk.

Effie Pearl—grandma. Longsuffering.

Ephraim—secret admirer of Eunuch Esteban. Made dress shirts for gangsters and Putin at $100,000 a pop. Studied cooking under Deutz. Gave his life to stop the Gulf Cartel.

Esteban—Hidalgo Eunuch. Otomi. Extreme wealth.

Eve and Luke Yoder—modern Amish.

Everett—chick. Ex-biker. Large-animal vet. Married to Yuuma Sato, DVM. Manages the specialty farm. Separates semen into boy and girl sperm. Inseminates everything.

Hamblen Dexter—herd sire. Champion-polled red Dexter bull. Doesn't like electroejaculation.

Iddy Biddy Bebe Boy—first child of Bobby and Brand New. Runs a sawmill. Plays football. Marries a rescued sex trade girl made pregnant by his brother, Nuderelvis. Sumo wrestler. Toilet trained late. Looks like Hos Cartwright.

International Ladies' League—wealthy matrons out for adventure, adopting the lifestyle of Wolfpen Hollow. Have their fingers on the purse. Use outhouses, and bathe in washtubs on the porch. Ride sidesaddle, bare-assed. Force issues with the governor. Dress includes seventeen-inch snake boots.

Jackie—first love of Audrey. Married her daughter, Daphne.

Jacyn-Gladys—Mosaic Down's girl. Rescued from rape by Totomitl Joshua, Otomi chief. Captured and raped by Nuderelvis. Escaped and traveled with her hinny through the Mexican jungle to freedom. Mother of Reason. Wins the Iditarod. Was raised to see her potential. Champion football quarterback as she could see the whole field. Legacy of Emenandy (Patrick and Andy). Defeats the Canadian Football League to make them play the game right. Takes American football to Xinjiang and Kentucky. Survives Chinese prison torture. Cannibal.

Joe—pa (grandfather). Brought to the table shoving a man's right arm up and cutting him three times quickly under the right lower rib; skin, fat, facia, just that fast. A skill learned in prison.

Justin—victim of childhood cancer. Nursed back to health by Audrey. Married to Audrey. World-renowned naturalist. Gives up free thinking and becomes a radio evangelist.

Liam—macho libre. Sumo wrestler. Navy SEAL. Defeats the Chinese Navy in Taiwan. Jacyn-Gladys' husband. Cuckhold of Danny with Ann. Takes one for the team. Lingers and dies on the porch (A size issue).

Liberal Judge—enabled Sissy-Lynn to skirt the law to provide for the Otomi and rescued sex trade girls. Fast-tracked hinny ranching through the systems of the UK, Mexico, and the USA. Built ice skating rinks along the border and billed them to the US government to help illegal aliens cool off. Fast-tracked USDA stamps on meat that Esteban shipped north from Del Rio to the US market. Enabled rail cars roasting BBQ pork to cross and cook en route to US markets. Helped the process of selling the same steers twice through the kosher markets in the US. Saved the Border Patrol by explaining that the whipping of the ground with long reins was Esteban welcoming Haitians over. Fast-tracked the smuggling of Mexican glass marbles across the border. Moved Haitian voodoo through the US and into Canada. Fully vested in Sissy-Lynn's fortune.

Lonnie—Tommy's twin brother who was killed by Tommy in a gang fight in Birmingham where ten-year-olds were fighting with razor blades while locked inside a dark rail car.

Lucy—big dog. Wins the Iditarod.

Maneus Wood—evildoer. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin (James 4:17). Preacher. Cause of Honey's incarceration.

Maria Aguilar—Esteban's bodyguard. Ex-Mexican Marines. Cartel nemesis.

Melvin Tine—pedophile. Stole Audrey. Hangs self like Judas.

My honey—Sissy-Lynn's third husband. Object of forbidden love. Name is from address Honey, do this or Honey, do that.

My son doesn't listen to me—deaf son of Provender Daley.

Nuderelvis—tomcat. Ann's son. Evildoer. Do not fret evildoers, and do not be envious of the wicked (Psalm 37:1). Maneus Wood's grandson. Conceived by a passing vagrant while Ann was sunbathing. An eventual suicide, like Judas.

Old Era Church—huge church on Sixteenth Street, Indianapolis. Home church of Bill Graham for thirty-four years. Owns the Land of Milk and Honey dairy. Female members are Ladies' Leaguers. Ladies became veterinary assistants under Everett, specializing in reproduction techniques, including uterine washes on female donkeys. Also, published a book on foot care of Irish cob horses, utilized worldwide.

Peter Demus—retired state trooper. Third husband of Barbie. Replaced Sheriff Potter. Sissy-Lynn's good right arm.

Philly—married to Bernice. Disabled veteran. Gets a second chance over love of Irish cob horses, and a Traveller girl. Teaches rock throwing to rescued sex trade girls. A ratter and coyote hunter. Drives a gator.

Pierre Tee-Bo-Doh—Cajun businessman. Married to Sirina Del Bosque. Father of Babbett. Cajun bare-knuckle fighter.

Provender Daley—provides sustenance. Veteran POW. Husband of Season Lightly. Makes soup.

Reason—daughter of Jacyn-Gladys and Nuderelvis. The reason for everything. Bobby gives his life to save her. Oversees one-third of the fortune. Navy SEAL. Trained by Liam. Takes care of the hard parts.

R'emy Haydel—Melungeon boy who showed up wanting to work for some food. Good inside and out. Married Traveller girl, Effie. Became a great hunter, restauranteur, and Food Network star. Helped bring down the Applebaum Cartel at Nogales. Father of Justin.

Rev. Spurge—son of Spurge. The evangelist Spurge brothers remain in cold storage in Kansas City, victims of an open murder case. Rev. Spurge will marry you quickly and take care of the details later. Preacher from Lickspring Church. Preacher of the Music Church at Gnaw Bone. Harmonica player.

Season Lightly—Eunice Toombs from Macon Georgia. Wife of Provender Daley. Mislabel is from Provender telling her how to season the soup.

Sirina Del Bosque—Esteban's money manager. Married to Pierre, Babbett's father.

Sissy-Lynn—Honey's wife. Object of forbidden love. Annabelle's daughter. Owns Hamblen Dexter.

Sheriff Sherif Potter—means honest. Husband of Della. Kept a lid on Brown County. Invented the Heart of Hickory fishing rod with Zebco Reel. Shoots first and asks questions later.

Shindi—Bamar geneticist in Wolfpen Hollow.

Suki—big dog.

Teco—grandfather. Peach's brother. African for little brother.

Teresa and Raul—grandchild couple of Uncle Tio. Metal engravers. Gold assayers.

Tommy Lovell—Faceless POW. Origin: Gangs of Birmingham. Husband of Annabelle. Adoptive father of Sissy-Lynn. Faced was sliced horribly in a fight at age ten. Torture in POW camp in the jungle was to make him cut others to look like himself. Father chosen by Sissy-Lynn. Champion pickup rider in the rodeo. Loved Annabelle all his life. Married Annabelle at age seventy. A get-in-your-face kind of guy. Left Sissy-Lynn $40,000,000. She gave that to anyone named Lovell from Birmingham (Eddie and Effie).

Totomitl Joshua—Otomi chief. A drunk. Killed the last Applebaum in the act of raping Jacyn-Gladys. Stopped the flight of Nuderelvis with an atlatl dart through his chest.

Travellers—Irish Gypsies, speaking Cant.

Tucker—Sissy-Lynn's second husband. Drug dealer. Convict. Killed by his twin.

Uncle Lon (Billy Rivers) Lewis—Della's father. Singing master from Little Hope Baptist Church in Park City, Kentucky. Rolley Hole Marbles Champion. Taught marbles, Holy Whine preaching, Sacred harp singing, banjo frailing, thumb picking, ice skating, and bare-knuckle fighting. Stagecoach driver. Tio's fishing buddy.

Uncle Peach—ran a slaughterhouse in Seymore.

Uri—Amish adonis. Rape victim saved by Audrey. Services wind turbines in the Arctic. Unafraid of heights. Must be told to wear gloves. Marries Yuka. Grows vegetables for pickling in Xinjiang. Strong as an ox. Total pacifist. Grabs and breaks the jaws of arctic wolves.

Willie Ryan—world-renowned sculptor out of Dublin.

Yuka—Inuit girl raised and schooled by Audrey. Is over one-third of the fortune in Quebec. Married to Uri. Favorite of Canadian banking. Best at catching lemmings. Bobby dies to save her.

Yuuma Sato, DVM—married to Everett. From Hakaido University, Japan. Large-animal vet. Did the genetic studies on wild cattle in the Aleutian Islands.

Prelude

In 1925, the road up Sweetwater Creek was the actual bed of Sweetwater Creek. One would find poles along the route to use as pry bars to lift car and wagon axils out of ruts and potholes, according to my father. It was a rough place under where the Sweetwater Lake rests today. It is a nice and pretty thing that covers up an ugly history of incest in that area. In fact, that is one of three generally accepted factors for incest to occur, not one of which gets you near to anything as ugly as human nature itself. People think about rugged terrain, unnatural distancing between an eldest or only daughter and her mother, and a dominating patriarchal influence. These notions come from reading true crime and grit ¹ magazine articles about the Goler and the Colt families of rural Canada and rural Australia, associating that perversion with groups as far removed from society as possible. ² But then you adjust for stories out of the mouth of Ted Bundy ³ and 2008 disclosures about the criminal Jeffs ⁴ and his lifetime of abusing children. We'd be better off knowing and accepting that two states recognize brother and sister marriages under certain circumstances, that our Founding Fathers is a story about first cousin marriages with twelve and fourteen children produced, and the royal families of Europe were largely incestuously defective people while claiming divine right to rule. That the rules for incest were developed by nonsexual practicing men around 1175–1225. And preceding this were the Incas and the Egyptians. That we had Cain and Lot and Ammon and even Herod Antipas doing this crap. Or we could just say it is more common than we want to know about and say shhh ⁵ whenever it pops up.

This story came about as nothing more than a hand-delivered notice for jury duty at 5:00 a.m. when Sheriff Potter made it up to the Applebaum place and didn't slam his car door out of deference to Mrs. Applebaum in the house but followed his gaze to the kerosine light in the milking shed and found himself looking at the backs of the bare legs of Bud Applebaum screwing his simple daughter draped over two bales of hay. He couldn't have guessed how long this had been going on at the time. He did well enough to stop halfway back down the creek and beat Bud within an inch of his life out of pure disgust. But he was fairly clearheaded by the time he got to Helmsburg and put Bud on a train to land him somewhere out of state with a sure knowledge that he'd be shot on sight if he ever showed up around there again. There's more to being a sheriff than just arresting criminals. There's protecting society from the ugly within it. He could live with this waking him up from nightmares a whole lot better than some lynching or shame that set the community back a hundred years.

He swallowed it with his pride and only revisited it at the sheriff's auction east of the courthouse in Nashville when the Applebaum place was sold for taxes. There was nobody left there to cut enough crossties to pay the taxes, and Mrs. Applebaum was about as simple as the poor girl victim. For the life of him, he couldn't make the woman understand that she wouldn't get the land back in the year of jubilee. The forest was bought by an artist to make a preserve for the state-endangered whorled pogonia, and she promptly hung gates with padlocks and posted no hunting and no trespassing signs.

Joe Roller bought the farm proper, which didn't lighten the workload of the sheriff one bit. But worse, the sheriff had to look at and realize that he had really dropped the ball on this one. That simple girl standing next to her mother was in terrible shape. She was bruised from head to toe, had hanks⁶ of hair ripped from her scalp, and had big red sores all over her. She couldn't talk more than blubbering, and he was forced to have her taken into protective custody and arrested her mother for gross negligence and battery. Even so, he knew he was looking at second-degree murder if the girl should die. The doctor said she was beaten routinely and daily for an extended time, had been thrown repeatedly across the room by her hair, and had been stabbed about a thousand times by something red-hot and sharp (like a heated hat pin), and most of those wounds were picked at and were festered.⁷ The doctor admitted her to Central State Hospital, and she lived a few years but never did recover to be discharged.

A few months later, Mrs. Applebaum gave birth to a son who grew up to serve a decorated stint in the Army at seventeen and then recovered to come home and take care of his mother until she died. Bud Applebaum's records said he did pretty well during the war economy in the shipyards, but that he never cashed in his retirement benefits. The son's records ceased to exist at the Mexican border when he disappeared. And whatever that family was in Brown County seemed to be forever and always extinguished.

*****

The Irish coroner's summaries for Tom Lovell and Aaron Camden determined natural deaths. Both bodies were in bad shape from being exposed for an extended period. They both died in bed. Theirs was a habit of checking on each other. Nobody thought much about them not answering the phones. They were often off and gone someplace, together, working. It may sound obvious that they were old and should be watched closer. They had both resisted concerns about that. They were very independent men. Tom lived at Black Glen, and people passed that way going to Killorglin. Anybody might have checked on him. All people said was that the stock animals⁸ were out and seemed fine.

Aaron lived higher up in the Reeks in a framed house. When the Garda⁹ walked up to Aaron's home, their report said that the stock animals were out and seemed fine. The men had been dead a long time. An aunt named Aoibheann,¹⁰ a hundred years old in Tipperary, was interviewed. She gave the coroner the family's contact information in the USA.

Sissy-Lynn and I made the trip to retrieve the ashes, I representing the Camden family, and she her dad. Sissy-Lynn told the coroner that Aaron was from Seymore, Indiana, and Tommy was from Killorglin or Birmingham. She wasn't sure. That Tommy spoke Gaelic, as well as English and Spanish, and that he understood some Japanese and Filipino. He also spoke Shelta (or Cant),¹¹ but seldom around her. That infrequently, Travellers would stop at her mother's farm and do work she required and took their pay in peach brandy that they traded. That Tommy would stay up for days engaged with those people in business. She told them that Tommy was taught how to read and do math by Aoibheann as a teenager. And that he was pensioned by the US Army for most of his life. She had him correct the death certificates to the name (Tommy), as nobody ever called him Tom. She told him there were supposedly several Gypsy families in Birmingham named Lovell, but Tommy never named anyone there he was related to. He had said his parents were dead and that they had worked at Killorglin every year at the Puck Festival, so he had run there injured, hoping to cross paths with relatives but never did, or else learned there that his parents died. She said that Tommy was married to her deceased mother, and she was adopted by him, and besides kids, grandkids, and her husband and Aunt Aoibheann, he was the only family she had. And that her real father had been in hell for a long time.

We spent some time in Tipperary with Aoibheann while the case was being settled. We made arrangements there for people to take over the houses the men had been using, with the management of the stock. Aoibheann's Irish barristers came, and she made arrangements to leave her holdings to Sissy-Lynn as her heirs only wanted money. Foreign accounts in joint ownership with Siss-Lynn were settled to pay her grandchildren for the land and the stock. She died while we were visiting her. She left no one in Ireland to care about the Dexter breed of cattle. The last words she ever said to Sissy-Lynn were that she was sorry for her having to do all this. She needed more time she didn't have.

Sissy-Lynn set up a trust for the property under the Department of Agriculture and a consortium made up of herself, a Mexican family, Aaron's family, the International Ladies' League, and any family named Lovell who proved a relationship with Tommy in the UK. All horned cattle on the joint estates were marketed, with proceeds held in the Bank of Ireland for management funds. All polled red stock owned by Aoibheann were concentrated in Tipperary on her estate. Aoibheann's herd was nationalized as a holding of Ireland, more protected than the red stag, and under the University of Agriculture in Ireland for beef cattle studies. All remaining cattle and stock were removed to Kerry County.

Esteban and Aaron's brothers were to meet her at Black Glen to separate animals for shipment to America. She selected fifty heads for herself and gifted them to Luke and Eve Yoder in Indiana. Tommy left Sissy-Lynn a stock portfolio with a face value of $40,000,000 that she left in the Bank of Ireland under Aoibheann's barristers. Bronze statues of Hamblen-Dexter were erected in the reeks and at Aoibheann's estate. A bronze statue was erected at Killorglin on the Kerry way toward Black Glen of Tommy and Aaron riding their hinnies,¹² driving cows. Sissy-Lynn made a call to Dublin to Willie Ryan¹³ from the Harley Dealership and chewed him a new one. She sounded like her mother, Annabelle. She told him to get over there and put the scars back on Tommy's face. That she couldn't recognize him. Before she hung up, she said, I don't care, Willie. You know what he looked like.

The bikers in the shop said, Hell, yeah.

The Grand Champion Dexter bull was exhibited at the Puck Fair in Killorglin, and Sissy-Lynn strode out in her orange dress and faced the champion and bowed to him. The bull snorted and stretched out to smell her hat.

*****

The conservators gathered. Part of the trust was dedicated to the festivals she sponsored both in Ireland and elsewhere and the agriculture colleges her mother supported and were placed under the governance of Sheriff Potter's and Della's son's law firm, Maneus Wood's daughter Ann, and the Old Era and Music Churches, and the Ladies' League for management. She owned ten thousand cows and eleven breeding bulls in the Sierra Madre Oriental, with as many yearling steers and as many eighteen-month-old steers fattening for the market. And an unknown number of equine breeding stock and Hinnies she shared with Esteban and Peach's families and raised identical bronze statues of Uncle Peach and Esteban shaking hands and embracing on the campuses of Texas A&M and Universidad del Monterrey. Her fashion industry holdings were set up to support Agricultural Universities in Ireland, Mexico, the US, and Japan as the Everett Plotz DVM Fund. Her market cattle were primarily sold as To your door Monterrey Steaks, but she was one-fifth of the consortium of Japan, Ireland, Mexico, the US, and the Solomon Islands as suppliers for fine dining restaurants. Her eclectic hamburger was 80/20 to every burger joint in the US, and hers was snatched up before any other concern sold a patty. The one market everyone missed out on was bone and blood meal fertilizer and pet food processed from offal, tails, and tongues. She discussed that with Esteban, who remembered her mother considering the same.

Sissy-Lynn met with the Irish Ladies' League to discuss philanthropic benefactions in Ireland and to sign proxies for legal distribution. These included gang intervention efforts in Birmingham, England. She named Esteban and his heirs (Raul and Teresa) and Provender Daley's son and daughter-in-law as his children.

*****

In the last year of his life, when he was reduced to nothing and nobody, Sissy-Lynn, Reverend Spurge, Ann Woods, and Nuderelvis¹⁴ Woods took the saving power of Jesus Christ to Maneus Woods, and he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, then immediately backslid and stole his grandson away from Ann. Maneus was the epitome of the evildoer.¹⁵

A lasting memory I have of Sissy-Lynn is of her setting Tommy's granite marker beside Annabelle's among the wildflowers. I asked her what she said out there. She said, I thanked him for helping my Honey plant my wildflowers all along the Sweetwater trail, so I would always have wildflowers to look at while out taking a walk.

That year at the festivals, it seemed like half of Ireland and Japan attended.¹⁶ Red corn cobs were the preferred take-home souvenirs, and we nearly ran out. The Amish saved us with an emergency run for hygiene supplies and the mark of office for the Ladies' League Court. Sissy-Lynn addressed placing a granite marker for Lonnie Lovell, Tommy's twin brother, in the flower bed and a marker for her husband, Tucker Phillips, Deutz's twin brother. Both issues were taken under advisement. Japanese ladies were accepted into the Ladies' League, and their first issue voted on was the provision of a Puck Festival in Hokkaido on August 10, 11, and 12, and a wedding between Nuderelvis, who turned out to be quite a tomcat, and a local girl from the valley. She was with child, so the wedding was expedited.

Nuderelvis didn't show up for the wedding, and Ann took the brokenhearted girl in and let her Japanese husband in the Solomon Islands know that she would be extending her visit to Sissy-Lynn.

The Tom-Cat¹⁷

At midnight in the alley

A Tom Cat comes to wail,

And he chants the hate of a million years

As he swings his snaky tail.

Malevolent, bony, brindled

Tiger and devil and bard,

His eyes are coals from the middle of Hell

And his heart is black and hard.

He twists and crouches and capers

And bares his curved sharp claws,

And he sings to the stars of the jungle nights

Ere cities were, or laws.

Beast from world primeval,

He and his leaping clan,

When the blotched red moon leers over the roofs,

Give voice to their scorn of man.

He will lie on a rug tomorrow

And lick his silky fur,

And veil the brute in his yellow eyes

And play he's tame and purr.

But at midnight in the alley

He will crouch again and wail,

And beat the time for his demon's song

With the swing of his demon's tail.¹⁸

There were five hundred hinnies auctioned that year and five hundred fattened Dexter steers. There were papers for every hinny for conformation from the American Hinny Association. Esteban made a million dollars from the auction. Jeff Cook caught the biggest catfish that summer and shared it roasted in coals with Mr. Hall for a late-night repast. They sang Song of the South¹⁹ for the late hangers-on.

During the late fall, Sissy-Lynn had a stroke. I took care of her.

It was during her recovery that the Ladies' League and Peter Demus took over the task of saving more ground-nesters²⁰ by raising the cost for tom cats that took shortcuts across the farm. The pelts were processed for old-timey banjo heads, and Uncle Lon began teaching frailing and clawhammer picking at the meeting house. His music invention was a merger of five-string, three-string shamisen,²¹ accordion, uilleann bagpipes,²² Waylan Jenning's good tuning guitars,²³ and Guitarr'on,²⁴ because the saying is that if there is no Guitarr'on, there shouldn't be a performance. Peter Demus made a small fortune in handcrafted mountain banjos, and the Ladies' League in Hokkaido, first to master thumb picking / finger frailing, made enough on recording Earl Scruggs's music to make their group solvent for five years. Flatts and Scruggs had a comeback in the market in Japan, the second largest music market in the world, and were booked to do Foggy Mountain Breakdown to a crowd of forty million. Nobody cared that they were dead. Enough was made on the gate to hire Prince to play all the instruments.

Chapter 1

Sissy-Lynn opened the door of the store at Peoga to the tinkle of a bell. Barbie looked up from weighing bologna for a customer. Season Lightly stepped past her and took a plastic market basket and walked straight to the canned lima beans. Barbie raised her head in acknowledgment. Sissy-Lynn stepped over to an ice cream machine and made herself a small cone. She asked Season Lightly if she wanted one. Season said it wasn't necessary, but that she needed some canned corn for the soup. Barbie handed the bologna to the lady shopper and stepped over behind the checkout counter. Sissy-Lynn made room for the lady and said, How are you, Bernice?

Oh, I'm fine. I finally got that government check we spoke about. Your lawyer was very helpful with that. Philly never wanted anything from them after he got back from Vietnam. But he never was okay again. It's really going to make a difference for us.

Sissy-Lynn asked, Are you walking again? I told you to call me. Someone is always available to take you where you need to go. I wish you'd sell me your place and move to the farm. We'd build you a nice cottage, and Philly could spend his time fishing.

Why don't you just use our farm? We can't keep it up. It just grows more trash trees every year. I about stepped on a snake gathering eggs. I'd come to you, but Philly wants to stay there. We don't have any kids. You could have it appraised, and we'd take a promissory note against Philly needing to go to a nursing home if I was to die. And if Philly dies first, I'll sure come to live with you and do the fishing myself.

Sissy-Lynn said, We'll talk some more about this, Bernice. We should just include Philly. He might like the idea of sitting on the porch watching red cows grazing.

Well, you give me a call, and I'll at least get him up and in a pair of overalls for company. Bernice left.

Barbie pulled some ledgers out and laid them on the counter. She asked, Did you just buy another 320 acres?

Wait on Season Lightly, Sissy-Lynn said. She turned the ledgers around and opened the first one.

Well, I've got dry roasted tomatoes. But she's the only one who buys them, Barbie called from the back of the store.

Talk to Season Lightly, Sissy-Lynn said, running her finger down the columns.

Barbie led Season Lightly back to the front of the store. She always buys the same stuff, Barbie said.

I need some chickens for stock and a bit of pork, Season Lightly said.

Sissy-Lynn looked up from the ledger and asked, You got any broilers?

Well, I have four.

Sissy-Lynn closed the ledger and said, Show her the meat, Barbie. And show her some pork shoulder.

Barbie led Season Lightly back to the register.

Sissy-Lynn asked, What do you think about adding a car wash here?

Not much. I don't have the money for that.

I'm asking if you can empty change tins on a coin machine and add the take to this ledger.

Sure.

Sissy-Lynn gave Barbie the come-along sign and pointed out the store window at a new Wrangler. She said, I want to wash my car. Some men will be by to estimate the work for a car wash. You feed them and add it to my bill. You wait on Season Lightly for whatever she wants and add it to my bill. You add my ice cream to my bill. Don't ever again say you have only four broilers. Whatever we don't sell, you add them to my bill for soup. If Season Lightly is the only person who buys dry roasted tomatoes, you hang them right here at the checkout so she doesn't have to look for them. And, Barbie, if I ever need to discuss with you some farm I want to purchase to help some friend of mine, I'll approach you about it. I approached you about buying this store so we both own it, and you weren't sitting out there at the corner waiting for a ride to anywhere else. I don't think about that as me just buying me another store and slap myself in the forehead in astonishment. I did that because you and I could have been friends at age six, and here we are still fiddle farting around about that at seventy.

Well, Sis, I do want to be your friend. I've always wanted that. I've had no one to share with. Just Pete, and his head is always up his ass.

How many husbands does Pete make?

Three. How is David?

Well, see, we have marriages to talk about. My Honey is autotelic. What can I say?

Barbie stood there like Sissy-Lynn was making fun of her.

Well shit, Barbie. He's an artist. He's in the zone. So I'm running errands when I want to screw.

Yeah. I know how that is.

Look, Barbie, I'll send Teresa and Raul back up here so you can show them how to open and lock up. Then you and Pete come early before daylight for breakfast. We'll make a day of it. Eat with Provender Daley and Season Lightly for lunch. Catch some fish to roast for dinner. Take the governess cart out with a hinny for the evening. I want to go by and get a snake that's troubling Bernice. We'll make you a knife sheath to wear on the back of your belt. Put that copperhead to some use. Then maybe you won't ever make me ask you over ever again. Just come. That's what friends do.

Sissy-Lynn turned to Season Lightly and said, You ride in the back. We got to pick up Bernice and try to reason with her about walking four miles to the store, her an old woman.

Chapter 2

Like that? Barbie asked, standing to pull up her jeans and looking down at her pee puddle.

Yep. Now you just come over here and sit down and wait for the butterflies. Sissy-Lynn stripped the saddle from a hinny she called Mags. The animal shivered then lay down to roll. She stripped the saddle from the other hinny, Reecee, and let her join her friend chewing blackberry briars. Did you say Pete was a state trooper?

Barbie pointed at a butterfly hovering around her pee. Sissy-Lynn spit on her finger and held it out. Barbie did the same. Soon there were three butterflies.

He's retired, Barbie said.

It had already been a long morning. They had shared the cooking then waited on the men. Pete had eaten nearly a whole jar of violet jelly on his biscuits. They had coffee on the front porch, then the men had left them to go to the Art Barn. The women had been fishing much of the morning, just at the pond. It was walled in with tangled hedgeapple trees. They caught eight catfish on boilie bait with treble hooks and rode them down to Provender and Season Lightly to put in foil and bake in the coals of their soup fire for supper. They had soup and corn bread. Then they rode up onto the ridge to do butterfly pee. Sissy-Lynn raised her binoculars and looked across the valley behind the men's residence at a line of ladies riding sidesaddle. In a minute, she handed the binoculars to Barbie.

She studied the ladies then looked at Sissy-Lynn and said, Do they not have pants on?

They're wearing a train. It covers their front, but not their back if their knickers are down.

What?

I told them that I ride sidesaddle bare-assed because it feels good. Didn't take them long to come over.

Does it feel good?

You bet. They just act all coy mounting like Romeo is gonna see their kooters when he's boosting them up.

Well, I want to ride sidesaddle, Barbie said.

"Barb, you can teach sidesaddle if you want to. I want you to let me get a grocer to run the store and you and Pete come live