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Laughter on the Wind11,048 wordsMilton Lyles
1
Laughter on the WindI
My eyes were stung by rain as I searched the darkness for the shape of the cabin. Thelack of any sign of light did not trouble me. J.T. was not the sort of man who needed light tohold back the kind of fear that breeds in darkness. I saw the cabin through a break in the rain. Itwas ominous as dark and silent as a tomb. I knew as surely as I knew my own name, that he wasthere waiting in the dark for me to come and kill him. I knew with the same unquestionablecertainty, that even more than he wanted me to kill him, that he wanted to control the scriptlike the director of a good B movie, for that too was part of the game he had skillfully drawn meinto. The stiff wind, blowing hard from the south, slanted the warm sheets of rain into the Gulf of Mexico like rice blowing in the summer breeze. That same wind and rain muffled the soundof the outboard motor and doubtlessly kept J.T. off his boat dock. He was no longer a mangiven to sleep. The cancer which was, with infinite and painful patience, killing him denied himthe solace of sleep.If I were a different sort of man, I might tell you that he deserved to suffer as penitencefor his many sins, and I wouldn’t even count the ones against me. I no longer have that degreeof cruelty, and no one this side of hell deserved the kind of physical torment that miserable oldman was suffering. Even with generous applications of booze and morphine, he could not sleepfor more than a half an hour at a stretch. His dying reminded me of a strong, sharp toothed,young wolf taking down a crippled old stag and devouring it while it still lived.J.T. could no longer abide being cooped up in rooms, not even those with largewindows. He especially liked to be outdoors at night when the softest hint of a gulf breezetouched the water. Were it not for the rain, J. T., more than likely, would have been sitting onhis screened in porch, hunkered down in his wheel chair. His mouth would be wet with thetaste of very good whiskey while his fat Roy Tan cigar would be glowing like a lighted buoy inthe darkness putting out a heavy cloud of blue grey smoke sufficient to drive off even the mostblood thirsty of mosquitoes.I could, without much effort, conjure up the image of him sitting there fishing in his redand gold striped silk pajamas. I had, for three intolerably long weeks, watched him sit on hisprivate dock in his wheel chair and fish many an evening away, peeing in a baking powder can,smoking his cigars, and drinking copious amounts of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey. He would
Laughter on the Wind11,048 wordsMilton Lyles
2
splash the whiskey across slivers of ice that I fetched for him. I used a block plane to shave itfrom one of several hundred pound blocks of ice in the ice house out back of the main house.He fished and waited in the darkness for death to overtake him or at least for a cool nightbreeze to come along and dissipate the heavy air the day had left behind. Death was deniedhim, though he often spoke of it as some men long for lost lovers and the comfort they wouldbring if they only would return. The cool breeze was also denied him as the heat clung to thenight air with all the tenacity of a blood sucking leech. All that was left to the old man was hisfishing, his drinking, and his cursing at the cruel fate that had delivered him to this sad end.On those nights when I carried his bed out onto the dock, I would curl up in mosquitotormented ball and feign sleep in a hammock which reached out over the water’s edge at theland end of the dock. It was from that area that the mosquitoes swarmed up towards the docklantern hanging on a tall post holding up one end of the hammock. The lamp glowed in thedarkness a single pinpoint of light seemingly calling forth every mosquito adrift on the gulf.Beyond the voracious mosquitoes my other companions on those nights were my memories of my past debaucheries and of better days and an occasional line of cocaine or two and a bottleof Johnny Walker Black to take the edge off my hurt pride.When the island loomed out of the rain that was barreling across the Gulf of Mexicopreceding hurricane Audrey, I did not head straight to the boat dock on the gulf facing southside of the chenier. If J.T. were watching, if he were waiting, he would see me there. I fearedhim, even in his weakened sick condition. I feared him as a hunter fears a wounded lion or acape buffalo. He wanted a good, quick, clean death. He was counting on me to be theinstrument of his salvation from pain, but he would not, as the saying goes, “go quietly into thatgood night.” He would try and inflict as much hurt on me as possible for that was his verynature.The boat dock at the point where it joined the chenier had been extended into a gentlyslanted switch back wooden ramp to accommodate J.T.’s wheel chair. The incline was brokenby two horizontal platforms as it ascended up to the screened porch of the cabin which sat atoptwelve cypress pilings that rose eight feet above high tide levels. The tall, square sturdy posthad kept the cabin above the roughest of the hurricane churned sea storms for thirty-nineyears. It was for that reason that I had no fear of the coming storm.I slipped the boat around to the north side of the island, and used the motor to drive thebow hard into the shallow slant of the muddy black earth that was the north shore. The windhad begun to shift around as I jumped from the bow of the launch and dragged the anchor to asturdy chenier oak trunk and looped it around fully believing that I could kill the old man andget away clean.Judge J.T. Slater was a man who loved games of chance. He knew I would come on thisnight, knew what my temper and rage would drive me to do, knew that he had sown the seeds
Laughter on the Wind11,048 wordsMilton Lyles
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of my willful destruction, and hoped no doubt that he had pirated the last of my decency as Ihad purloined his father’s good name. I saw the cabin through a break in the rain. As surely as Iknew my own name, I knew he was up there waiting in the dark for me to come and kill him. Iknew with that same unquestionable certainty that even more than he wanted me to kill himthat he wanted to control the script, for that too was a part of the game he had so skillfullydrawn me into.As I climbed the steep stairs on the rear side of the cabin, the wind grew fiercerand transformed the rain into horizontal sheets. When I reached the landing that filled out theback porch, I stumbled and fell noisily across the empty wheel chair. It lay on its left side andthe right wheel spun slowly in a quiet circle. I could feel the closeness of him, the very power of his evil desire drawing me toward him. He had known that before the night was over I wouldhave discovered the enormity of the sin that he had led me to. He had known I would come forhim and that when the sun rose only one of us would be alive. This, I thought, this is what hehad planned from the very moment he had explained the concept of Mancipium to me. I tookthe cold weight of J.T.’s pistol from my belt and filled my hand with it and slipped into thedarkened cabin to meet my fate.II“I know,” he said, “that it is an antiquated, illegal, indefensible, concept, but you do oweme a debt, and I do not believe there is enough money in anything you do, or have done, orever will do in your pathetic little life to square the debt you owe me.”“J.T. you’ve professed your hate for me for over thirty years, and now you’re askingme,” I said through gritted teeth, “to willingly hand my life over to you. You must be crazy, orbelieve that I am, if you think for one minute I would give you power over my life for as much asa heart-beat. I can think of no reason that would force me to let you own and control me for ayear. Particularly no reason as pathetic as having told a lie that slandered your daddy whosehonor was suspect at best.”“You see, Mickey, we’re making progress. I do believe that is the first time you haveacknowledged that what you wrote about my daddy was a lie.”J.T. gave one of those horse snort-sounding laughs that I despised. I felt anger spring upin me like a white hot fire that would not be banked. I desired nothing more at that momentthan to choke the life out of his fat greasy body. When I answered him, my voice, as though itwere the voice of a stranger, worked itself into the shape and tone of a hopeless stutter tingedwith feeble supplication. “Bu,-bu, but J.T.” The very sound of it caused tightness in my chest,
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The Mancipium Agreement
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