III. I Heard It Through the Grapevine

1.

Claude, Gertie, Winthrop, Camellia, Thaddeus, and Alastair were gathered at Elsie’s Bar to discuss Hampton’s mental state. They had all pulled up chairs around a table in the main room, as the bar hadn’t yet opened for the day.

Claude launched the discussion by asking, “OK, we know what wrong with the boy?”

Thaddeus responded, “Well, he told us he’s feeling all out of sorts, but he ain’t told us why. And when we try to pin him down, he gets all squirmy.”

Alastair added, “Yeah, he’s one crafty mofo, always dodgin’ our questions with some joke and shit.”

Gertie asked, “Anything we might do to cheer the boy up?”

Alastair said, “He seems excited about the gospel show tonight. He met with the manager for a bit at the real estate office.”

Claude smiled. “The boy always did love him some gospel. Makes me happy to know we’ll see him there tonight. Thad, Al, just make sure he show up, alright?”

Thaddeus responded, “Done, Mr. Claude!”

He and Alastair got up and bid farewell to all. As they left, Thaddeus held the door open for Donna Nobis, who was arriving to open the bar.

Claude greeted Donna, then turned to Gertie and told her, “Why don’t you git on home and rest? Me and Winthrop here got some business to discuss.”

Gertie got up, leaned over, and kissed Claude on the cheek. “See you at home, sugar. You take care now, Winnie. And don’t you fret about yo’ chile and Hampton. It be just fine.”

When she had left the bar, Claude said to Winthrop, “Let’s git in the back room. Hampton be here soon.”

Winthrop asked Camellia, “Did you bring something to read like I told you?”

Camellia reached into her handbag, pulled out Columbia Magazine, and waved it like a wand. “Yes, daddy, it’s the special art edition, and it got a picture of yours truly in it!”

“OK, you sit yourself here reading, or even just pretending to read, for all it matters, and Hampton should be along soon.”

Camellia nodded, and began to flip through the magazine.

Claude and Winthrop went into the back room, which served as both kitchen and office, and pulled up two chairs near a small service window. Given that the bar had just opened and no one other than Camellia and Donna were there, they figured they could hear Hampton and Camellia just fine.

Winthrop began to launch into a story about a ten-foot gator he had run into while fishing at Sikes Swamp, but Claude hushed him, saying, “Hampton comin’ in the front door now. You gotta hush.”

Hampton entered, singing “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in a loud voice. He stopped singing when he noticed Camellia sitting at her table.

Once she had his attention, she asked, “Hampton, how you been?”

“Yeah, I been fine.”

“You been sending me a whole lotta texts, and I been meaning to respond…”

Hampton cut her off. “I ain’t sent you nothing.”

“Whachoo talking bout? You know damn well you been sending me texts. And they was kinda sweet. But now you being mean, and that sweetness turning kind of sour.”

“You honest?”

“Say what?”

“You fair?”

“I have no idea what you playin’ at.”

“I’m just sayin’, if you honest and fair, then just stop being so beautiful.”

“That don’t make no sense. Why someone beautiful can’t be honest and fair?”

“Cause beauty like you got turns men into liars. One time I told you I loved you.”

“Yeah, that what you made me believe.”

“You never shoulda believed me. ’Cause I never loved you.”

“Sure had me fooled.”

“Just stay away from men. Be one of them church ladies who shakes around and cries on Sundays when the Holy Spirit grabs ahold of her. Cause otherwise you just gonna be breeding sinners like me.”

Hampton seemed to catch a scent on the air, and looked around the room suspiciously. “Where your daddy at?”

“He home.”

“Good. Let that fool stay there.” He turned to head toward the exit door, but then paused and looked back to Camellia.

Camellia shot a worried look back at the service window. Her father lifted up his hand so she could see it and gestured that she should continue.

“Just don’t be with no man. Or if you’re gonna have a man pick a really dumb one. Cause the smart ones know you gonna be out whoring around with their friends and making fools of them. So, better you just become one of them Holy Spirit ladies.”

Hampton again began to leave, but, as though he had an episode of Columbo running through his head, again turned back.

“I know about you shine-eye girls: you can’t accept the face our Lord done give you, so you gotta go purchase all fancy shit and put on a fake face. Well, I’m sick of it. I’m done with all that shit.”

Hampton turned and walked rapidly out of the bar.

Camellia buried her face in her hands, and began crying softly. “What happened to him?” she said, mostly to herself.

Claude and her father came out of the back room and sat down on either side of her at the table.

Camellia said to them, “I can barely stand to see him in such a state. He was like the Bruno Mars of Denmark, and now he just like a brokedown palace.”

Claude responded, “It ain’t all about you. Something else be troubling that boy. And whatever it is, I suspect it kinda dangerous.”

2.

Hampton, after leaving Elsie’s Bar, walked the mile over to Rome Baptist Church. Along the way, he passed some of the worst housing in Denmark: a series of shacks with rusted metal roofs and the dilapidated trailers under the live oaks at the Hands on Home mobile park.

After traversing such decay, coming to the clean, brick facade of the church was a relief. Hampton passed through the white double entrance doors and found that The Spiritual Gospel Singers were already setting up their equipment inside the church. He greeted Norbert, who introduced him to the rest of the group. Hampton was particularly struck by a rotund singer called “Sticks,” who wore over the medicine ball of his belly a T-shirt (the singers had not yet changed into the suits they would wear for the program) which bore the picture of an 18-wheeler and the assertion that “God loves truckers.”

“I brought the song I like you to add to your program tonight. Let’s go over it.”

Norbert began reading aloud:

“Cain so jealous of his closest kin
Killed him dead, then the Lord come round He said, ‘Abel’s blood calls out your sin
Cain, you cursed now from the ground.’”

At that point, Hampton interrupted the reading: “Now, when y’all get to the line about ‘Could not allow that kin to live,’ the music gotta stop, so that line could be heard real clear throughout the church, OK?”

The group rehearsed the song for a few minutes with Hampton listening. Pleased with what he heard, he told them “You boys sound great! And I do appreciate y’all doing this for me. I know you already getting paid something but here’s a little extra to thank y’all.”

He handed Norbert a $100 bill, who told him, “Appreciate ya, brother.”

They shook hands, then Hampton went to the back of the church and sat in the last pew, while the group finished setting up the stage. Hearing the church door open behind him, Hampton turned in his seat and saw that Winthrop had entered the church. He rose to greet him.

“Yo Winthrop, how you doing? Claude coming tonight?”

“Yeah, and Gertie too. Imma go get me a seat up front.”

“Alright, I be up there myself soon enough.”

The church door opened again, and in walked Hiram.

Hampton waved to him, and said, “Brother, I gotta have a word with you. Come have a seat.”

Hiram sat down beside Hampton and asked him, “What up, my brother?”

“You know how that old drunk said it was Claude that done in my daddy?”

“You think there was something to that?”

“Truth be told, I was already wonderin’ about it myself. It was all a bit too convenient for ole Claude, weren’t it?”

“True dat.”

As they spoke, the church was gradually filling with people arriving for the evening’s program. The men were dressed in colorful suits, or at the least jackets and dress shirts, while the women had on their Sunday best dresses, and many of them sported fancy hats. One woman looked like she had dressed herself as Haile Selassie for a costume party, with the addition of a multitude of imitation gems applied to the imperial jacket and hat.

Hampton continued: “But I ain’t sure yet, so I devised a little test for tonight.”

“A test?”

“Yeah, I added a song to the program, about Cain and Abel. You know, with someone killin’ his own brother. And I wanna see how Claude react to hearin’ that song.”

“So how I gonna help?”

“I want you to watch him too. Then after, we gonna compare notes, and join our judgments about whether he done it or not.”

“I can do.”

The door to the church opened again, and Claude and Gertie walked in together, followed immediately by Winthrop and Camellia.

Hampton whispered to Hiram, “Go get a seat up front. I’m gonna sit on the opposite side of the church from you.”

Hiram got up and moved to the front of the church, and Hampton rose to greet the new arrivals.

Claude spoke first. “How you doing, Hampton?”

“I’m about as fine as a three-legged pig can be, given it Easter soon.”

“Hampton, I can’t never figure out what you on about!”

Hampton turned to Winthrop. “Didn’t you used to sing Gospel?”

“Yeah, and people used to love my voice.”

“And just what did you voice?”

Winthrop looked confused, and hesitantly replied, “Well, I was a baritone.”

“So you added the barest of tones?”

Winthrop was totally nonplussed, and could not even formulate an answer. But he was saved from having to do so by the commencement of the evening’s musical program. The musicians were creating background color as the church’s minister began to give the devotion.

Claude said, “We better go get our seats,” and they all made their way to the front of the church.

Gertie, once seated, said to Hampton, “Come sit next to me,” and patted the chair to her left.

Hampton responded, pointing to the chair next to Camellia, “Thank you mama, but that metal chair got a more magnetic kinda attraction for me.”

He took a seat on the floor next to Camellia, put his head in her lap.

“Now this here is the country where I belong.”

Camellia pushed his head away, and Gertie, scowling, told him “Son, you get yourself up off the floor and sit in a chair like a normal person.”

Hampton pulled himself up into his seat, and, leaning over, quietly asked Camellia, “You think I’m rude?”

Camellia, turning up her nose, answered, “I ain’t thinking nothing.”

“Now ain’t that the normal state of a woman’s mind.”

“Whachoo mean?”

“Nothing.” Hampton guffawed at his own wit.

Camellia pulled back, giving Hampton a quizzical look. “You in a jolly mood tonight.”

“Why shouldn’t I be jolly? My daddy ain’t been dead but a couple of hours, and look how jolly my mama is.”

“A couple of hours? He been dead a couple of months.”

“Well, if it been a couple months, then no wonder she done forgot all about him. Who knows, maybe when he been gone half a year, ain’t nobody in the whole town still remember him.”

Before Camellia could respond, the Reverend Hemingway, from the microphone at his pulpit, said, “Good evenings, folks, and praise the Lord!”

“Praise the Lord!” the congregation called back.

“We’re gathered here for a very special evening with some musical guests down all the way from Columbia. I hope everyone here tonight is moved by the Holy Spirit. And if any of you is sufferin’ any afflictions, any of you got diabetes, any of you got cancer, any of you got cardiovascular disease: you offer them up to the Lord. And I pray Jesus can cure your sufferin’. Now, let us hear some songs praisin’ our savior”

The Spiritual Gospel Singers took up their instruments and microphones. They began their program with “God is Still in Charge,” followed by “Mississippi Poor Boy.” Then Norbert addressed the crowd. “Now we gonna introduce a brand new song wrote especially for this occasion.”

As they performed Hampton’s song, he carefully watched his uncle. The third time the group paused the instrumental music and sang the key line, Claude rose from his seat, turned to Gertie, and said, “Sorry, I think I got me some food poisoning or somethin’.” He then moved swiftly down the center aisle of the church and out through its double doors.

When the program had ended, Hampton lingered in his pew as the congregation filed out. When almost everyone had left, he spotted Hiram on the other side of the church. Hampton motioned him over. Hiram sat down next to him.

Hampton stared at Hiram. “So whachoo think?”

“My man guilty as hell, that’s what I think.”

“Yeah, that what I think too.”

“So whachoo gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I gotta contemplate this for a bit.”

Then the pair heard the door of the church opening behind them, and turned to find Thaddeus and Alastair walking up the central aisle toward them.

Once the two pairs of friends were within a few feet of each other, Alastair said, while pointing to Hampton, “Brother, we gotta have a word with you.”

“Yeah, what up?”

“Your mama, she’s real upset.”

“What about?”

“Well, it seems Claude is real sick, and somehow, she feel you got something to do with it.”

Thaddeus chimed, “She said she’s been amazed at how you been acting.”

Hampton said, “Ain’t it somethin’ when, after all these years, a boy can still amaze his mama.”

Alastair said, “She wants you to go round her place tonight before she goes off to sleep.”

“Far be it from me disobey my mama.”

Alastair looked askance at Hampton. “We were brothers once.”

“So you saying we ain’t brothers no more?”

“I’m saying a brother oughta let another brother know if something troublin’ him.”

“I just ain’t got no future ahead of me.”

“Why you say that? You know Claude considers you like his own son.”

“Yeah, and maybe he ain’t looking forward to seein’ the son rise.”

The door of the church opened again, and Winthrop rushed up the central aisle to address Hampton.

“Hampton, your mama really anxious that you come see her.”

Hampton squinted one eye and gave Winthrop a quizzical look. He pointed up at the dimly illuminated stained glass window behind the altar: “Winthrop, ain’t that window shaped kinda like a pregnant sow?”

Winthrop, nonplussed, glanced nervously up at the window.

“Yeah, I see what you saying: it is kinda like a pregnant sow.”

Hampton looked at the window again and shook his head.

“I stand corrected: it really look more like an angry gator, half submerged in the swamp.”

“Yeah, you right: it do look more like an angry gator.”

“Well then, seeing we agree on that, you go tell my mama I be coming along soon enough.”

As Winthrop walked away, Hampton began singing:

“I’m gonna wait ’til the midnight hour
That’s when my love comes tumbling down
I’m gonna wait ’til the midnight hour
When there’s no one else around”

3.

An hour later, Claude (having recovered from his “episode”), Thaddeus, and Alastair were gathered around a table in the back of Elsie’s, speaking in hushed tones, so that their voices would certainly not be heard above the music of the jukebox.

Claude said, “The boy be mad. It ain’t safe for him to be around Denmark in his state. I want y’all to convince him to go back up to Clemson with you.”

Alastair nodded: “Yeah, the first thing we concerned with is keepin’ things goin’ smooth here in Denmark. And now you the one runnin’ things, so many people be depending upon you, we behind whatever you need from us.”

Thaddeus added, “Mister Claude, we know that you the one turnin’ the wheel that keeps this town goin’. And if that wheel stop turnin’, ten thousand things liable to go wrong. So we happy to bring Hampton up north with us.”

Claude thanked the pair for their assistance, and they got up and walked out of the bar. On their way out, they passed Winthrop on his way in.

Winthrop seated himself at Claude’s table. Sotto voce, he told Claude, “I think Hampton goin’ over to Gertie’s place now.”

Claude responded, “OK, and what’s that got to do with me?”

Winthrop answered, “Well, ain’t nobody better than a mother to draw the truth outta her son.”

“True dat.”

“I think what I’m gonna do is make my way over there and see if I can hear what he telling her. Then Imma report back to you.”

“Winnie, I do appreciate you doing that for me, and I ain’t gonna forget it.”

Winthrop got up and walked out of the bar. Left by himself, Claude ordered a double scotch, and drank it while staring vacantly at the neon moon of the bar’s window lights.

4.

Gertie lived in one of those elegant antebellum homes at the north end of town, which she had shared with her husband until his recent passing. She was sitting in her housedress on the couch in her living room, watching a romance movie on Netflix while sipping a gin and tonic, when Hampton walked up onto the wraparound porch and knocked on the front door.

Gertie rose from the couch and peered out through the intricate leaded-glass window of the front door to see who was there. Then she opened the door, and said “Hampton! What you doin’ here at this hour?”

“Mama, I hear you wanna talk.”

“Well then come in. Sit yo’self down.”

She motioned him to sit in the leather recliner next to the couch, and sat back down herself.

“So what up with you, son?”

“First off, I wanna know why you keep lookin’ at me like I’s crazy.”

“Well, you givin’ offense to your daddy’s memory, for one.”

“Me? Mama, you the one hooking up with his brother just two months after he gone.”

“Boy, I thought I taught you some manners when you was growin’ up. You don’t never talk to your mama that way!”

Meanwhile, Winthrop had crept up onto the porch as quietly as he could, and tried to listen at a living room window. Finding he could not hear what was being said, he walked across the porch to the dining room, slid open one of the windows, and hoisted himself through it.

Unfortunately for him, as he did so, his foot collided with a side table placed next to the window, and knocked the silver tea service it had hosted onto the floor, producing a great clatter.

Hampton jumped up out of his chair, and grabbing the handgun he knew Gertie kept in the drawer of her sidetable, whispered, “Mama, we got an intruder!”

He raced across the entrance hall and, seeing a figure silhouetted in the window of the darkened dining room, hissed out a name, and then fired two shots.

Winthrop cried out, “Hampton, you done shot me,” and collapsed onto the floor.

Gertie had followed close behind Hampton into the dining room, and, seeing the body on the floor, she asked, “Hampton, what the hell you done?”

She turned on the chandelier over the dining room table, and now they could both see who lay on the floor.

“Hampton, you done shot Winthrop!”

Hampton said, “What that interferin’ old fool doing crawlin’ in through yo’ window?”

“I don’t know, but it don’t mean you get to shoot him dead!”

Gertie thought frantically. “We gotta get Claude over here.” She took out her cell phone and called him.

“Claude, you better get over here right away. We got big trouble.”

She listened for a moment, and then repeated “Just get over here.”

When she had put her phone back in her dress pocket, Hampton asked, “Mama, why don’t we just call the police and say we had us an intruder, and I shot him.”

“Son, people know you’ve been acting all crazy lately. They know you done fell for his daughter, and he was standin’ in your way. You gonna have a hard time convincin’ the police you didn’t know it was him.”

The two of them stared at the body on the floor for a moment, and then Hampton said, “Let’s get outta this room.” He turned the chandelier off, and they moved back into the living room and sat in silence, awaiting Claude’s arrival.

A few minutes later, they heard a key in the front door. Claude entered and stared at his lover and his nephew, sitting like penitents in the living room. “What’s goin’ on here?”

“Hampton done killed Winthrop dead.”

Claude looked at them in disbelief. “How the hell that happen?”

Hampton replied, “The old idiot was climbin’ in through the dining room window. I thought he was some burglar.”

Claude kicked a footstool halfway across the room. “Dammit boy, ain’t there no end to the trouble you aim to cause this family?” he stared up at the ceiling for several seconds, and then said, “Show me the body.”

The trio proceeded into the dining room, and Gertie flipped the chandelier back on. Claude studied the body lying on the floor. He asked, “Y’all sure he’s dead?”

Hampton, “Yeah, he dead all right.”

Claude gave him a disdainful look. “So you some sort of medical examiner now or somethin’?”

“You don’t believe me, you go check him out for yo’self.”

Claude walked over to the body, crouched down, and put his fingers on Winthrop’s neck. “Yeah, he’s dead all right.”

He rose back up, and, looking at Gertie, said, “Get me a whiskey. I gotta think for a minute.” He walked back into the living room and sat on the couch.

Gertie went down the central hallway to the kitchen in the back, and came back a minute later with a glass of brown liquid in one hand, and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black in the other. Claude gulped down his drink, and, raising the glass towards Gertie, said, “Another.”

He drank his second whiskey more slowly, and when he was done, he stood up from the couch, and announced, “OK, here what we gonna do. Hampton, gimme that gun you done shot him with.”

Hampton handed the gun over to Claude, who took it back into the dining room, and fired a shot into the wall.

He looked back at Gertie and Hampton, who had followed him into the room. “Hampton, you gonna get back to your apartment, and stay put until mornin’. Thad and Al was bringin’ you back up to Clemson anyway, so we gonna have them pick you up first thing tomorrow, but they gonna say they left with you right after the gospel program. Now git.”

“But…”

“No you don’t say nothin’, you just do what I say, boy.”

Reluctantly, Hampton turned and walked out the front door.

Gertie looked hesitantly at Claude. “I gotta tell you somethin’.”

“Go on, woman, spit it out.”

“Just before Hampton fired…

“Yeah?”

“I heard him say yo’ name.”

“Did he now?” Claude took his phone out of his pocket, and punched a name in his contact list. “Sheriff Joyce, Claude Shepherd here. There’s been a terrible accident up at Gertie’s place. Can you come over right now?”

He put his phone back in his pocket, and said to Gertie, “Everything gonna be all right.”