A Gentle Rain (15 page)

I had to tell her I was teasing.

A 1950s photograph Lily showed me one night was infinitely depressing. A very young, shy Lily, dressed in dungarees and wearing a brace on her bad leg, sported red hair cut so short it appeared shaved. She clung to the hand of a leathery old woman in a shapeless print dress.

That woman, Granny Maypop, Lily called her-there was a tradition of flower names in the family-looked both grim and nervous. It was as if she knew that being the center of attention rarely brings good fortune to the poor and powerless.

Granny Maypop had worked as a maid for the wealthy Tolberts, and they had let her bring Lily, her sweet, simple-minded granddaughter, to work with her. And there, she had met a sweetly simple, stuttering soul mate. Mac. Thus Lily and Mac had grown up in the grandeur of the Tolbert's antebellum home, River Bluff

Lily showed me a picture from Mac's family album. River Bluff was not a Greek Revival stereotype but a large and ornate house nonetheless, with columned balconies and a white-washed turret, a grand house by historical standards, filled with fine things, paintings and pianos, staffed by slaves and later by sharecroppers, white and black alike, servants in a comfortable and elegant Tolbert world among the live oaks and marshes of north-central Florida.

I researched the Tolberts on the Internet. They maintained an elaborate genealogy site linked to related sites for the town of Tolbert and its history. They had founded Tolbert, Florida in the 1830s, building a pioneer-era trading post into a prosperous and historic burg on the broad St. John's River.

The St. John's is an enormous waterway, meandering more than three hundred miles north from the marshes of central Florida to empty into the Atlantic Ocean near Jacksonville. In the vicinity of Tolbert the river is more than two miles wide.

Tolbert, like its famous larger cousin, Palatka, was a key supply port for the Confederate army during the Civil War and a major steamboat stop. In the 1800s every Mark Twain and Showboat fantasy of the paddle-wheel era existed on the river's palm-Puled vistas.

Mac's people had owned steamboats and turpentine mills, timber mills and farms. A prosperous legacy, then and now. Glen Tolbert-my uncle, should I choose to think of him that way-owned several large commercial farms, fast-food franchises, car dealerships, and a real estate firm. He had been married several times and had grown children and ex-wives scattered across the South.

The modern Tolberts were a powerful lot. Couldn't they have tolerated my birth? Couldn't they have absorbed the mild scandal of Mac and Lily's love child? Couldn't they have convinced Mac and Lily to keep me?

To at least acknowledge that I had been born?

To no surprise, days at a working cattle ranch were long and exhausting. Hundreds of spring calves had to be rounded up, castrated and vaccinated, weaned from their mothers and readied for shipment, via large tractor-trailers, to stockyards and huge ranches out west.

Florida's cattle industry ranked highly nationwide, but was k nownn as a "cow-calf" business, meaning the primary function was to raise beef calves to weanililg age, then sell them to others who grew them to adulthood, for slaughter.

As a semi-vegetarian I didn't eat beef, and I considered the beef cattle industry a major source of pollution, both in terms of human health and environmental resources. Thank goodness, I was wise enough to keep that thought to myself.

For a little while.

Several nights of the week-usually in conjunction with some televised sports game du jour-everyone gathered at the ranch's version of a fraternity house rec room.

Ben had walled and insulated a section of the hay loft in the cattle barn, installing a pool table, several rump-sprung old couches, a refrigerator stocked with cheap beer and snacks, a microwave for making popcorn, a basic bathroom, a variety of neon beer signs and sports posters, and a sixty-inch television set.

When not watching the seasonal choice of football, baseball, basketball, or rodeo specials the ranch crew watched movies on DVD. Their film selections leaned heavily toward action-adventure, PG-rated comedies, and feature-length cartoons.

TV nights were joyful. Everyone jostled for favorite spots on the couches, sipped beer, ate popcorn, hooted, laughed, yelled at the TV good-naturedly, and dozed off with their heads on each other's shoulders as the evening wore on.

Lula snuggled between Cheech and Bigfoot. Dale and Roy held hands. Mac and Lily propped Joey up between them when he napped. Mac had the duty of carrying Joey up and down a flight of rough-hewn stairs to the rec room.

And Ben? He sat in an aging, upholstered chair in the shadows, apart from the group, watching his brother sleep with his handsome chin steepled on one fist, his eyes dark. What went through his mind? What worried him? His gaze met mine at times. I couldn't read him. He watched me in the shadows, and I watched him.

Miriam and I whispered in a corner near the humming refrigerator. "Joey says you and Lula were friends of his and Ben's mother," I said to Miriam. "That's a wonderful legacy. You're part of the family."

She nodded. "Ben and Joey are like our own sons. We had bad husbands, two for me and three for Lula. Well. And Lula never could have kids."

"And you?"

Her face sagged. "I had three. Sweet boys but wild as buck rabbits. All three died in a head-on with a telephone pole. The oldest was eighteen. He was driving. He was on drugs."

"Miriam. I'm sorry."

"I couldn't give `em enough time. Always working. Me and Lula got our LPN certificates after we got too old to work as mermaids. Worked at nursing homes, hospitals, private sitting for rich old people."

"You and Lula have worked for Ben a long time?"

"Ten years. Since he and Joey come back from Mexico. Helping him take care of Joey and the others."

"How bad is Joey's heart?" I asked.

Miriam chewed a fresh toothpick harder. "Worse than I think Ben wants to admit. But Ben ain't saying. He lives for that boy. Can't picture Ben without him."

"How did Ben manage after their parents died?"

"Ran to Mexico so Joey wouldn't get taken away from him. Ben was sixteen. Joey was seven. They came home when Joey was almost eighteen and Ben was mid-twenties. Bought this ranch."

I leaned closer. "Just out of curiosity, what did Ben do in Mexico? What kind of work?"

She darted a look at Ben. His attention was on the television. An Atlanta Braves game. Miriam whispered, "He was a wrestler. He hated it. Don't ever ask him about it."

"What name did he use?"

"The Devil American. El Diablo Americano."

It was true. I'd found him.

My heart turned back the clock. I was sixteen years old, watching television during a family trip to Sao Paulo. We traveled to that major Brazilian city regularly. Mother and Dad owned a large townhouse there, where they entertained the royalty of the environmental movement.

As usual, I'd sequestered myself in my bedroom with stacks of books, magazines, a bag of diet candy, and my deliciously lowbrow passion: Latin soap operas. The telenovas were broadcast in Spanish and occasionally dubbed in Portuguese for the Brazilian audience. I could speak both languages.

From the moment I saw El Diablo, I needed neither. He spoke to me in the silent, powerful language of teenage puppy love.

He was a minor character in a dishy melodrama. The plot made no attempt to clarify the line between El Diablo Americano, real-life wrestler, and El Diablo Americano, soap opera character. They were one and the same.

He was young and tall and strong, and he spoke excellent Spanish with an American accent. His acting style was awkward, but then, the telenovas didn't lend themselves to Shakespearean performances.

He was a bad guy, dangerous and sultry. His dark eyes flashed inside the polyester eyeholes of the mask, which was blue with a spray of red-andwhite stripes on one side. He wore it with everything from soccer shorts to tuxedoes. He wore it in bed. He seduced good girls. He seduced good women. He broke their hearts.

All while wearing a mask.

There were no sex scenes, or nudity, just a lot of scenes involving his bare chest. I never saw his face, but I saw his handsome chest regularly. It was a wonderful bare chest.

What sounds ludicrous now was then, to me, the most mysterious, sensual, desirably forbidden male persona on the entire planet. That teenaged night, thinking about El Diablo Americano in bed, I discovered the joy of, hmmm, self-love, I'll call it. I was a late bloomer in that regard. Thanks to El Diablo, I bloomed constantly after that.

"Karen?" Miriam asked. "You okay? You're turnin' real pink."

I blinked. Back to the present. "Yes. Just absorbing this fascinating information."

"Like I said, don't bring it up. He purely hates to talk about it."

"Why? Professional wrestling is respectable entertainment. And very athletic. The Mexican version is based on agility instead of brawn. Some of the lucbadores are as graceful as gymnasts. Throw in a few dazzling martial arts moves and ... well, so I've heard."

"Yeah, I agree with you, but Ben don't see it that way. First off, he didn't like playing the evil American. He says it made him feel unpatriotic. Secondly, he's a piss-poor actor, and he knew it. Third, he despised parading around in a mask and tights. Last but not least, people whispered and snickered about him the whole time, `cause his career was set up and managed by this rich woman he lived with in Mexico."

"Lived with?"

"Yeah, him and Joey. She took `em in, she doted on Joey, and she had connections in show business. She got Ben into wrestling, and then into soap operas. He was like her big, prize, show dog. She kept him on a short leash."

My heart sank. I cast another furtive look at Ben, to guarantee he was still looking at a baseball game on television. "Are you saying he was romantically involved with this woman for ten years?"

"That's the polite way of describin' it. He was sixteen when she took him and Joey into her household, and she was a good-looking forty-five. I've seen pictures of her. Ben's got some files in his office. That's why he keeps it private."

"She molested him."

"That's not how people saw it back then."

"Is he still in contact with her?"

"Naw. She died a few years' back. She used to call him here, chattin' about little bits of money he was owed, you know, his little cut of video sales or something."

"Hmmm. The DVD collections ofall his telenovasand the highlights of his wrestling career are available. He must still get occasional residuals."

"His what? They're out on DVD? How do you know?"

"Well ... I assume. That's how this kind of thing works. Isn't it?'

She stared at me oddly. I fidgeted and feigned innocence. I had the DVD's. Sentimental reasons.

Miriam shrugged. "Anyhow, I've heard Ben talk to her on the phone. Her name was Cassandra. He was always polite. But every single time, once he got off the phone with her he'd go drink about four swigs of bourbon. Straight. Right out of the bottle. Ka-boom. Then he'd take a long ride on a slow horse. Then he'd come back and take a shower. That oughta tell you what kind of memories she brought up."

"He was abused."

"He'll tell you himself she gave him a choice, and he took it. And he made a lot of money, and Joey got good care, and when Ben was ready to move on, she wished him well and let him go. He got to keep his dignity. Sorta."

"There's no dignity when money and seniority take advantage of poverty and youth."

"Hon, tell me something I don't know. But it's the way of the world. That's just how it was."

I felt sick. I would never be able to look at El Diablo Americano the same way again. Now I felt protective of him. And angry on his behalf. No wonder he was a bad guy, a rudo.

He was Ben. And Ben had suffered.

"Don't you tell Ben I told you all this," Miriam whispered. "Our secret?"

"Our secret."

"Don't let it put you off him. He's not some traumatized soul. He's done fine. He's a good man, good to women, a sweet person. He's had some good girlfriends, and they worship the ground he walks on."