Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/s_m0693.zip/S&M-11

Text File | 1993-05-30 | 9KB | 160 lines

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 ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░Miss Bessie░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░by Franchot Lewis
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          Strips of sunlight lit Miss Bessie's face. The sun
     showed itself through the cracks of the blinds in her front
     room. She had drawn the cord tight, to shut out the outside.
     She didn't want to see the morning. The sun, in gentle
     defiance, poked her with its finger, splashed its warm light
     on to her eyeglasses, and caught her making the first signs
     of a smile. But, she shook off the budding smile as she saw
     the approaching banker. She mumbled, "true to his word."
          The banker had warned that he would come the first
     thing in the morning. The time was barely passed eight
     thirty, and the tall, nearly bald man, who walked like his
     engines were at full throttle, came quickly up the front
     steps, and knocked harshly on Miss Bessie's door.
          Miss Bessie opened the door, slowly.  She glanced at
     the banker's transparent smile, into his light brown eyes.
     She knew that her black eyes were filled with liquid that
     captured some of the pain of her past sad days. She was an
     old lady, and like an old lady she has played the game old
     ladies play with their liquid eyes to get more days from
     bill collectors, foreclosure people and bankers. She has
     gotten more days, further and further extensions of time.
     She has been a mama cat playing with the kittens whom the bank
     had sent to get her to vacate her house. She has clipped
     their claws with her liquid eyes. But, this tall banker who
     has come was no kitten, Miss Bessie considered him a rat. A
     big rat.
          "Ma'am," the banker said, "You are still here."
          "I'm waiting for my niece to move me," Miss Bessie
     answered, speaking very humbly. "Her husband, as you know,
     broke his leg, and she has nobody to help her."
          "Ma'am, we've been through this."
          "Please, bear with me. Please."
          "Why is it, talking to you is like playing ping pong?
     This back and forth? Ma'am, if you don't get out, the
     Sheriff is going to move you, and who needs that? He'll
     move your stuff into the street."
          Liquid overwhelmed Miss Bessie's eyes. A tear dropped
     from the left corner of her left eye, every few seconds
     until she found a linen handkerchief in her apron and
     wiped the liquid away. While she did this the tall banker
     mumbled something about being exposed to every trick in the
     book, then he peered over Miss Bessie's head to look into
     the house. "I need to check the house," he said.
          "Oh, can't you come back?"
          "The Sheriff is coming, tomorrow," he said. "I'm
     going to check the house."
          "Come in," she said. She stepped back from the doorway.
     "But be careful to step over the threshold."
          "Why? Is the floor weak there, now?"
          "Out of respect for the spirits of this household
     that lie on guard at the threshold," answered Miss Bessie.
          "Brother," mumbled the banker. He was wary of Miss
     Bessie's eccentricities, and was determined not to be put off
     by her old lady tricks. He boldly entered the house,
     purposefully planting both his feet down on the threshold
     and lingering to make his point. Miss Bessie gasped as if
     she had been poked.
          "Oh, dear," she said. "Oh, dear."
          The banker stepped into the house and felt a bright
     pain on his left leg, like something was digging there with
     a tiny piercing pick. He shook his leg and screeched, "What?"
     He grabbed the leg, and now felt something crawling up his
     leg. He swashed it in the leg of his pants and shook it loose.
     A roach had crawled up his pant leg. "You've got cockroaches!"
     he snarled, showing Miss Bessie the whites of his eyes.
     Miss Bessie was silent, but he heard a whisper in his ear.
          "You say something?"  He heard a buzz. "The last rude person
     who entered here."
          "What you say, ma'am?"
          "Nothing."
          She walked away from him. She went into the next room.
     He followed. He looked around. He saw no sign that she had
     been packing. The house looked as if the occupant was
     planning to remain a long time. "What are you doing?" he
     asked.
          She answered, "Chasing away shadows."
          "I mean," he said, "you aren't packed."
          "My grandfather built this house in 1867."
          "Yeah, it is an old house, too much wood, not brick. No
     brick is going to be harder to resell."
          "My father put in the bathrooms, and the asphalt roof."
          "Ma'am, the house belongs to the bank."
          "A few years back, the roof leaked upstairs in my
     father's old room. The plaster came down. My niece's husband
     came and fixed it. He painted over the ceiling, and he
     painted over the walls, over the pretty wallpaper my
     mother had picked out, in the second year of her marriage
     to my father. Pretty wallpaper with roses. They said my mama
     loved it. My father had been dead three years when my
     niece's husband painted the wallpaper. I awoke one
     morning, heard a sound in his old room.  I've lived here
     alone since he died, and I felt there was an intruder in
     the house. Still, I went into his room. I was drawn. And
     there was my father standing at the wall. 'Where are your
     mother's roses?' he asked. 'Wiped off,' I said. He told me
     to bring them back. I said I would and he left -"
          "Vanished in thin air?" the banker remarked.
          Miss Bessie answered, "Yes."
          "Ma'am, I'm sorry for your personal difficulty. This
     is not pleasant for me. But the fact is that you co-signed
     a loan for your niece and used your family's home for
     collateral."
          Miss Bessie began to sob, "Mistake, mistake."
          The banker nodded.
          "Don't let anyone know I've lost my house. I would be
     too ashamed. Let them think I've sold it."
          "No problem."
          "What would the ladies at church think?  I'm to be
     evicted, put out in the cold on a rainy day."
          "Rainy day?" mumbled the banker. "It is going to be
     sunny all day tomorrow."
          "My bunion says it's gonna pour down and rain."
       "The problem is not mine, you could leave today on your
     own."
          Miss Bessie stopped sobbing, wiped her tears. "It
     has been a long time since I've walked the floor all night,
     and I've wished I had been born a man with a man's strength.
     I would not have let you in here."
          Miss Bessie raised her voice and gestured with a
     dramatic stare. She gave a grunt like she had lifted a
     weight. A light seemed to swirl in her black eyes, like a
     fire flash spinning in the sky at dusk. The banker returned
     a blank stare, like her sharp looks at no effect. Usually,
     persons hit by her hard stare curled up into a furry-like
     ball and dropped to the floor like a kitten and had no will
     at all. The banker stayed on his feet, clenched his fist
     and she began to sort of vibrate. Nothing like this had ever
     happened before, but somehow she could relate to it - perhaps
     because it was the way it was with her father. He was the one
     in control of every situation, and his powers left her witch-
     like powers behind. Her father warned that this banker
     wouldn't be easily put off.
         "Stop," she plead. "Stop."
         The banker replaced the blank stare with a sweet look
     of delight, and she felt a sheet of ice nettled on the
     bloody muscle that was her heart. She stumbled, fell. Icicles
     were now in her black eyes.
         She mumbled, "What kind of man are you?"
         He leaned over, watched her breathing heavily, resting
     her head against the couch. "A banker," he said.
         "I'm dying."
         "I know."
         She groaned and shook, as if from a terrible jolt of pain.
         He said, "I can see how your nephew-in-law got his leg
     broke. Most men would be dead after exposure to witchcraft
     like yours, but it is you with ice sheeting your heart.
     It is better this way. You could not live outside this house,
     and the bank could not live with the publicity of kicking out
     an old lady like yourself."
         "But who are you?"
         "A banker, Ma'am. Bankers have witchcraft too."

                                  -end-
                  Copyright (c) 1993, by Franchot Lewis.