FICTION // Gus and Lizzy: Chapter One, Part Two

by Gerald Veasley

illustrations by Christopher Spencer

EXCERPT //

“From the orchard, the boy couldn’t make out who was driving the Ford Model T. In reality, he didn’t have to see who was behind the wheel; he knew whose automobile this was. There weren’t too many cars in Edgefield, and it certainly didn’t belong to a colored man. Most likely this vehicle belonged to the mayor, a man who also had the distinction of being the town’s only doctor. Dr. Samuel Glass and his wife, Margaret, employed Papa and Lizzy as servants in their lavish home. Why was he here on a Sunday? Joshua suspected it wasn’t to deliver another fancy set of china.

Pressed into service by his wife, the good doctor had taken the drive over to the Farlow house to fix an urgent problem. Margaret Glass didn’t know how much longer she could endure Thomas’ absence from the Glass household. Tom’s daughter, Lizzy, was a sweet but slender reed of a girl who could not perform the heavy work that the father could. To Margaret, the sorry state of her domestic affairs was untenable. She chose this afternoon, when her husband would be disarmed, reading the Sunday newspaper in his study, to broach the subject. She cajoled her husband to see to Tom’s health.

‘After all, my dear, you are a doctor.’ she said.

‘Yes, but what can I do? I am but one person and there are folks all over the county with influenza. Why, there is an entire section in the colored cemetery for people who have died from it.’ His defense sounded weak to him even as he spoke.

‘I don’t find that comforting, Samuel.’ She feigned hurt, a tactic that had often proven successful.

Accepting his defeat, Glass looked at the ceiling and simply said, ‘OK.’ On the way out the door he grabbed his brown leather satchel and straw fedora, taking a glance back at Margaret, who seemed—for once—satisfied.  

On the trip to the other side of Edgefield County, the air was hazy, the trees an unpolished bronze. The promised energy of autumn had not yet been fulfilled, instead, there was a persistent lethargy that hung on branches like tired laundry. The engine of Glass’ Ford hummed with ridiculous optimism throughout the trip to the Farlow house. The hills were easy to climb for the new car; crests that promised but failed to deliver a respite from the repetitive landscape. Each successful ascent only revealed more of the same. Unremarkable landscape encircled self-satisfied dilapidated houses, oblivious to their impending rot. Now and again, a cotton field would make a showy presentation, an embarrassing whiteness against the perpetual brown of ailing farmland.

Even more ostentatious were the pearly antebellum homes dotting the county. He drove past the Pecker estate, then the Calhouns’ manse, followed by the Johnsons’, and on and on; a cotillion of belles unaware they were too old for their coming-out party. For the most part, these homes had managed to cling to a patina of beauty. Like the United Daughters of the Confederation, they were unbowed by the harsh realities of the modern world.”

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