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The King and the Pawn
The Journal of EJ Parker
By Phenyx
February 19th, 1899-
I am Eugene Jarod Parker. Most everyone who knew me called me Gene. At least that is who I was, before that life ended. My mother and my brothers and sister are all dead, and all who knew me believe me dead with them. I am fifteen years of age and this is the tale of my journey to America.
I am not sure where to start my story for there is so much to tell. Yet I am told that the trip by boat to shores of the U.S. will take nearly two weeks so it would seem that I have plenty of time. I find myself bunked in cargo class and we are packed in the space like sardines in a can. But my space is dry and I have simple rations that should last for the entire trip. The book I write in now seems to be an unheard of luxury among my traveling companions. Some call me Plato, in deference to my education.
Father Theo taught me to read and to write as he did with many of the children on the isle were I was born. I swore to him that I would never neglect my studies. I guess it is for him that I write my thoughts down now. For Father Theo and my sister Angel I dedicate this tale.
The good father would berate me if he could see these ramblings, now. Organize your thoughts boy! He would tell me. Don't waste fine paper with dawdling scratches. You are creating literature! Treat your knowledge with respect.
He's been dead for a year now and thoughts of him still bring sorrow to my heart.
I shall begin my story with the day my life changed.
I was a normal enough boy before that night. I was the eldest of seven children and I had many responsibilities. Marcus and Harold, younger than me by two and three years respectively, were in constant need of brotherly supervision. I used to trick them into doing my chores for me. We often tussled in the yard. How I miss them.
Maggie, sometimes called Angel by those who truly loved her, was the lone girl among us children. She was only nine but she carried a spark of divinity in her. Maggie had an angelic beauty that would have one day turned her into an amazing woman if only she'd been given the chance. By far the smartest of us all, it was her warning that alerted me to danger that night. She was the angel who saved me from the fire though she could not save herself.
Colin, half my age then, was a typical seven-year-old. He and Percy, at five, used to follow us older boys around like puppies nipping at our ankles. I remember the time that Harry and I drew spots on their faces while Colin and Percy slept. We told them that they had grown freckles during the night for fibbing to our mother. Lord how we laughed!
Little Robin was one month shy of his third birthday. Such a sweet and affectionate tot, Robby loved it when I would grab his hands and spin him high in the air. He would squeal and giggle until he got hiccups, then Momma would grin while she scolded us both. I spent so little time with Robby, too wrapped up in boyish things to be bothered by my baby brother. What wouldn't I give to hear that tinkling laughter one more time?
Even after so many months, the wounds left on me by their deaths are fresh and raw. I miss my brothers. I have failed my only sister. I want my mother to rouse me from my sleep and tell me this has all been a bad dream.
I want to go home.
Instead I shall chase the solace of sleep. Perhaps I can find little Robby waiting for me in my dreams and we can play together for a while. - I write no more tonight.
-
February 21, 1899 -
It was a year ago today that my father set fire to our house and burned our family to death.
I stare at these words I have just written and I am amazed. How can such a catastrophic change in one's life be defined by so simple a sentence?
Yet it is true, my father set out to kill us all that night. I suppose that he succeeded in a way, for the boy that I had been died in that house with his brothers. As I hid among the trees behind our home, the screams from within the flames were like daggers, cutting the last of childhood away from my soul.
I was helpless to save them.
Angel had tried to warn me just before supper. She had run in to the house, clutching her doll to her chest as though she had seen a ghost. She told me to keep my eyes and ears open, for she felt that a curse was about to befall us. She seemed so frightened, so serious, that I dared not disbelieve her.
"Go to Father Theo." She said. "If anything bad happens we must go to Father Theo."
My little sister had been so convincing about the danger we were in, that I did not retire for the night. I sat, fully clothed, in the doorway of the room I shared with Marc and Harry. But Father must have put something in our food for try as I might, I could not stay awake.
Screams from downstairs finally roused me but by then, there were flames all around. I rushed to my two brothers and dragged them from their beds. We huddled together in the middle of the room as the fire grew around us. I was forced to shoulder through a burning wall in order to reach the hallway. The small round window at the end of the hall led to the back yard and salvation.
Marc was too frightened to attempt the jump from the second story to the ground. I went first and tried to coax him and Harry down. They hesitated for a moment too long. I remember yelling at them, screaming. But the roof collapsed and they were gone.
I began to run, frantically searching for help. When I saw my father standing in front of the house, I stood dumbfounded. He was wearing a cloak and a satchel sat on the ground at his feet. He looked as though he was headed for the mainland on an ordinary business trip.
But there was an unholy light in his eyes. A grin of pure malice darkened his face. In one hand he held a torch and as I watched, he tossed it into the burning house. He turned, perhaps sensing my presence. As if by instinct, I dropped to the ground, cringing in the tall grass like a frightened rabbit.
It was many long minutes that I lay there, too frightened to move. When I finally summoned the courage to look about, my father was gone.
I ran.
I ran as though demons were after me. Perhaps they were.
Remembering Angel's warning, I fled through the woods toward the abbey. Father Theo welcomed me, ushering me into the church with a strong shoulder to lean on. I managed to tell him what had happened and shockingly, he believed me.
I think that perhaps Angel had warned him as well.
"You must hide, Eugene." Father Theo told me. "Your father must not find you here."
I told Father Theo that my father probably thought I was dead along with the rest of my family.
Father Theo felt I would be safer if others thought I'd perished as well.
I began to weep.
The dear priest put an affectionate arm around my shoulders. I shall never forget what he said next. "The devil walks the isle this night Eugene," he told me. "I'm afraid you've no time for grief. You must go on. Survive. For if you fail, the last spark of goodness in the Parker line will be forever extinguished."
He hugged me tightly then. "All the goodness and light that was in your brothers and your sister has only you to carry it forward. You must not let them down."
I swore to him that I would do my best. Father Theo then wrapped me in a warm blanket and bid me hide among the rafters in the bell tower. He would go and gather some things for me. Bring me a few coins from the poor box.
I waited for what seemed an eternity, shivering and sniffling in pain. When the door to the room opened again, Father Theo returned but he was not alone. The manner of the priest's speech and demeanor told me to stay hidden in my spot. I froze in terror as I realized that it was my father trailing into the tower with him.
My father was furious, growling threats and obscenities at the priest. Unaware of my presence, my father evidently felt no need to mince his words. He wanted Father Theo to give him something. My father knew that Angel had come to the church this afternoon and he believed she had given something of great value to Father Theo.
When it became apparent that the priest would be of no help, my father went into a rage. Roaring with anger my father grabbed the priest by his robes. Before I realized what was happening, he tossed Father Theo from the bell tower.
I fled through the night. The image of Father Theo's bloody, broken body on the stone steps of the chapel will forever haunt me.
I remember little of the next few days. I think that I may have gone mad for a time. I managed to sneak onto the ferry and escape the isle. I continued to travel by night, stumbling through my tears as I headed south toward London. I hid from others, crouching in the weeds at the roadside as they passed.
It was full spring when I finally reached that great city. To this day I don't know how I managed it. I was little more than skin and bones by then. But London was a good place to hide. There were many lost and wandering souls in the gutters of Whitechapel. It is a good place to lose one's self. It is a good place to become someone new.
-
March 2, 1899-
Who knew that sorrow could be such an exhausting burden? It has taken nearly a week to write this much. For all these months, I have thought of nothing but survival and earning enough money to afford passage on this ship. These long buried recollections of my loss are heavy. The toils of my pen exhaust me even more than the chore of mopping out this section of the ship.
I have made friends with the steward on this deck. He gives me a nickel a day to perform many of his lesser duties. With me at his chores, he has time to dally among the rich ladies in the dining room. Who am I to say that he should not pretend to be the first mate? He is a handsome and witty American. The girls fawn over him. And I get 35 cents a week out of the deal.
Yesterday, he got lucky. Whatever that means. But he shared his good humor with me by giving me an apple that he'd swiped from one of the cabins. Forbidden fruit never tasted so sweet.
But I digress.
Once I had reached London, I spent some days learning my way around. I discovered the best ways to obtain food and found the driest places to sleep. Father Theo's gift of literacy became a marked advantage. Reading is a talent much desired among the poor.
My ability to read landed me a job in a grocer's shop. I would be summoned to fine houses and given a list of desired goods. I would run the lists back to Mr. Talbot's store collect all the items and deliver everything requested. I prided myself on quick and courteous service. All the tips were mine to keep.
It was by mere chance that I came upon a rather profitable enterprise. Each morning, Mr. Talbot sent me to the Quarter with the hard and moldy three- day-old loaves. There I would sell them to the wretched for a tuppence. If I sold them all, Mr. Talbot would give me a percentage of the sales.
The rolls were hardly edible until I realized that a pat of butter would be a great improvement. My own mother churned butter almost daily in my old rural home, so I was ignorant of its perceived fanciness among my new neighbors. Unbeknownst to Mr. Talbot, I purchased a half-pound of butter, sliced it into thin pats and sold them for ha'penny each. I made a tidy profit from my invested purchase as well as the percentage from Mr. Talbot.
In this manner, I managed to scrounge up enough money to secure passage on this ship.
I'm not quite sure when I decided to go to America. But all my funds were budgeted toward that goal. I am told that there is so much land in the new world that they practically give it away. Hardworking men can go from rags to riches with nothing more than a strong back and a little ingenuity.
That is where I will build a new life, a life that my mother and my siblings would be proud of. A life of which even Father Theo would approve.
Dark nights on this ship are the worst. Bunked below deck as we are, when the lights are doused for the night, we are engulfed in a total blackness. It is as black as the grave. God curse me for the coward that I am but the totality of it frightens me.
I am so very lonely. Sometimes, I swear that I hear sweet Angel's voice whispering to me in the dark. I strain to understand her words, but I cannot.
March 5, 1899 -
Lenny has helped me sneak on deck. As steward, he is permitted this privilege.
I now stand in the sunshine, a cold sea breeze blowing in my face. I can see the dark outline of New York rising out of the horizon. Shining like a beacon in the harbor I can see the copper statue that marks our destination.
I am so excited that I can barely hold my pen. I even find that I am smiling. For the first time since the fire, I can smile.
Lenny has boxed my ears to reduce my enthusiasm. Ellis is a hard place he says. He warns me that the guards will take my journal if they see it. The leather binding and blank sheets could be worth half a dollar. I will need to hide anything worth keeping or it will be stolen. Put nothing in my shoes but my feet, Lenny says, for that is where the guards will search first.
According to Lenny, many of us will be given new names. The bookkeepers are weary and over worked. They have no desire to stumble over troublesome spellings. The thought occurs to me that I can choose any name I wish. Once it goes into the book that is who I will become.
I must go and gather my things. The shore grows close.
-
March 9, 1899 -
New York is much like London. People throng in the streets. The poor and bedraggled jostle down the same walkways used by the rich. Last night, I slept in the doorway of a warehouse much like the one I left in England. I had a fistfight with another boy who tried to bully me out of the spot.
I am Gene Parker, now. That is the name that the recorder placed in his book.
I deliberated about a name for the entire two days that we waited in line. Father Theo's last words to me finally clinched my decision. I must carry on in the name of my brothers and my sister. I must carry their name. I cannot erase them from my life or from my memory.
There are too many newcomers on these streets. Too few jobs to go around. I will make my way down the coast until I find a job. With a little luck I can find an apprenticeship as a typesetter or a journalist. Both are successful and well-respected professions.
The story of my journey to America is ended. I have reached a new world that beckons to me. I feel the darkness of the past twelve months beginning to slip away.
The hole it has left in me will never truly heal. But I will survive.
- -
August 19, 1934 -
Many years have passed since my last entry in this book. I had thought the horror over, confined to the occasional nightmare. Over the past thirty years, even the dreams had slipped away to almost nothing.
But I was a fool. I deluded myself into believing that good had triumphed. I assumed that evil no longer walked among us.
How wrong I was.
And now, my lovely wife lies alone in our bed upstairs, weeping. My nightmares have returned in all their fury. My screams of terror woke both her and the baby. But I refused to talk to her about my troubles.
For the first time since we met, I cannot talk to her.
My father comes between us. I've told my wife nothing about my family.
Ruth is a kind and beautiful woman. She had many suitors and could have had her pick of any of those younger men. Yet she married me. I was nearly forty-five when we first met. She came to me with a children's book for publication. Our attraction for each other was immediate.
But I was a confirmed old bachelor, a well-established and influential man in this town. It was unseemly for a man of my stature to court a girl half my age. But my Ruthie is a pistol. Her tenacity and brightness of spirit wore me down in the end. Being her husband has been one of the great blessings of my life.
Of all the gifts Ruthie has bestowed upon me, none has been as precious as our child. Our daughter is like her mother in many ways. The child's coloring and beauty reflect her mother's influence. But my little Maggie has a charm about her, a cleverness and spirit that remind me so much of my long lost sister. I often think that my sister's name suits the child so very well.
If I listen carefully, I can hear my Maggie crying too. Seeing her mother's tears frightens her as it would any other three-year-old. She does not understand.
No one can.
Today I learned that my father still lives. I read an article in the newspaper about his recent illness. Evidently he runs a rather successful company, no small feat in these hard times. He is quite wealthy and politically important. But all his wealth and power cannot protect him from the reaper.
He has suffered a stroke. He is dying.
Ruthie doesn't understand my fury. I cannot bear the thought that he may have found peace. Has he sought forgiveness from our maker? I pray not. I want him to rot in hell for all of eternity.
My anger has lain dormant for too long. Its sudden escape from my psyche frightens me as much as it does my poor wife.
He has a son, a brother that I have never met.
Does my brother know what our father did? Does he know that his sire is a murderer?
I feel myself drawn toward Delaware. I need to look that old man in the face one last time and curse him. I want to rub his nose in his failure. He did not destroy me. I have survived and built a life that he would have denied me.
I live and through my child, some part of my siblings will live as well.
-
September 1, 1934-
I have returned home. I came through the front door unannounced and promptly begged Ruthie for her forgiveness.
I told her everything, from the fire on the isle when I was a boy to these last few days when I ran off to Delaware. I was calm and deliberate during the telling but burst into tears when I was done.
Blessed woman. Ruthie said not a word but simply opened her arms to me and held me tight. I found solace in the safety of her embrace. She let me love her right there in the foyer. She is magnificent.
I don't deserve her.
Good Lord willing, this is all behind us now. My father is dead. His curse shall die with him.
I caused much commotion when I arrived at my father's bedside. He recognized me immediately, which surprised me some. No one questioned the authenticity of my heritage. My brother was not pleased to meet me. The younger man is vile and something is his eyes makes me uncomfortable. He is a dangerous being.
I have a nephew. But the boy is just as disturbing as his father. Barely seven-years-old, the child insists that everyone call him Mr. Parker. The boy stood, watching his grandfather die, without the slightest hint of emotion. It was eerie.
I had my say with the old man. He cursed me just as vehemently as I did him. According to him I should have died. I cheated him! The bastard.
I stayed in the room until it was over. I waited while he drew his last breath. Father Theo would be disappointed in me for truth be told I stayed to make sure there would be no priest. No last rites, no absolution for that devil.
Then the oddest thing happened. As I left the room, an expensively dressed Black man approached me in the hallway. My father's body was not yet cold and here was an attorney with the dead man's will in his hand.
Apparently, my father's will leaves all his assets to his eldest living son. No specific name is mentioned in the document. I am my father's eldest. Everything is mine. My initial impression is that the sums in question are rather sizeable.
I didn't care. I barely registered what the man was saying. I wanted out of that house of death. The desire to flee rose in me like a specter from my past. I want nothing from my dead father and even less from my coldhearted half-brother.
When the lawyer snuck a paper under my nose, I signed it automatically and with little thought. I was desperate to be away from that place and back home in the arms of my wife.
It was not until I was on the train coming home that I bothered to read my copy of the paper I had signed. The document was an affidavit regarding the provisions of my father's will. In essence, the paper, signed by witnesses, declares me as my father's sole heir. My signature attests to my acknowledgement of this huge endowment and my acceptance of it.
I fear that I may have made a terrible mistake.
I want nothing to do with The Centre. I want nothing built on the evil legacy my father created. I don't want his money.
I never want to set foot in Delaware again.
I have the lawyer's card. I will write to him and see what I need to do to get everything signed over to the brother I barely know.
Let him have the legacy he wants so much. Devil take them all.
-
June 30, 1959 -
I have an heir.
My daughter, Margaret, and her Major have gifted me with a grandson on this fine day. They have even named the boy after me. I finally convinced Margaret that the name Eugene is too old fashioned and snotty for a child these days so they have switched the first and middle names. He is Jarod Eugene rather than Eugene Jarod.
He has large curious eyes and a thick tuft of dark black hair. He is quite simply the handsomest boy I have ever seen. Even the nurses in the hospital agree.
I wish Ruthie could have lived long enough to see him.
I will go to the office tomorrow and have my Will altered. Young Jarod will inherit everything. I will leave him all my assets, including the ones I never touch.
I never did sign over The Centre to my half-brother. I'm not sure why. I never read the documents he sent me. The checks that roll into bank accounts with my name on them have never been touched. Maybe it is some spiteful part of me that does it to anger my dead father's spirit.
One day it will all belong to my grandson. He alone will hold the keys to The Centre.
Mr. Parker, the odd half-nephew I met at my father's sick bed, runs The Centre now. I know little of the man. I wanted nothing to do with any of them. My outrage at the loved ones who were stolen from me still clouds my judgment.
My new grandson will have a clearer head about these matters. He won't have dead brothers haunting his decisions. He will not have been robbed of his childhood the way I was. Jarod will be better able to cope with the legacy I leave him.
For you Jarod, I leave these final words. They are the same words Father Theo left with me so many years ago.
You must carry on. All the goodness and light that has sprung up in our family has only you to carry it forward.
As I hold you in my arms and gaze into your eyes, I know that you will not let us down.
-
My part in the Parker legacy is done. The rest I leave to you, my beloved grandson.
The King and the Pawn
The Journal of EJ Parker
By Phenyx
February 19th, 1899-
I am Eugene Jarod Parker. Most everyone who knew me called me Gene. At least that is who I was, before that life ended. My mother and my brothers and sister are all dead, and all who knew me believe me dead with them. I am fifteen years of age and this is the tale of my journey to America.
I am not sure where to start my story for there is so much to tell. Yet I am told that the trip by boat to shores of the U.S. will take nearly two weeks so it would seem that I have plenty of time. I find myself bunked in cargo class and we are packed in the space like sardines in a can. But my space is dry and I have simple rations that should last for the entire trip. The book I write in now seems to be an unheard of luxury among my traveling companions. Some call me Plato, in deference to my education.
Father Theo taught me to read and to write as he did with many of the children on the isle were I was born. I swore to him that I would never neglect my studies. I guess it is for him that I write my thoughts down now. For Father Theo and my sister Angel I dedicate this tale.
The good father would berate me if he could see these ramblings, now. Organize your thoughts boy! He would tell me. Don't waste fine paper with dawdling scratches. You are creating literature! Treat your knowledge with respect.
He's been dead for a year now and thoughts of him still bring sorrow to my heart.
I shall begin my story with the day my life changed.
I was a normal enough boy before that night. I was the eldest of seven children and I had many responsibilities. Marcus and Harold, younger than me by two and three years respectively, were in constant need of brotherly supervision. I used to trick them into doing my chores for me. We often tussled in the yard. How I miss them.
Maggie, sometimes called Angel by those who truly loved her, was the lone girl among us children. She was only nine but she carried a spark of divinity in her. Maggie had an angelic beauty that would have one day turned her into an amazing woman if only she'd been given the chance. By far the smartest of us all, it was her warning that alerted me to danger that night. She was the angel who saved me from the fire though she could not save herself.
Colin, half my age then, was a typical seven-year-old. He and Percy, at five, used to follow us older boys around like puppies nipping at our ankles. I remember the time that Harry and I drew spots on their faces while Colin and Percy slept. We told them that they had grown freckles during the night for fibbing to our mother. Lord how we laughed!
Little Robin was one month shy of his third birthday. Such a sweet and affectionate tot, Robby loved it when I would grab his hands and spin him high in the air. He would squeal and giggle until he got hiccups, then Momma would grin while she scolded us both. I spent so little time with Robby, too wrapped up in boyish things to be bothered by my baby brother. What wouldn't I give to hear that tinkling laughter one more time?
Even after so many months, the wounds left on me by their deaths are fresh and raw. I miss my brothers. I have failed my only sister. I want my mother to rouse me from my sleep and tell me this has all been a bad dream.
I want to go home.
Instead I shall chase the solace of sleep. Perhaps I can find little Robby waiting for me in my dreams and we can play together for a while. - I write no more tonight.
-
February 21, 1899 -
It was a year ago today that my father set fire to our house and burned our family to death.
I stare at these words I have just written and I am amazed. How can such a catastrophic change in one's life be defined by so simple a sentence?
Yet it is true, my father set out to kill us all that night. I suppose that he succeeded in a way, for the boy that I had been died in that house with his brothers. As I hid among the trees behind our home, the screams from within the flames were like daggers, cutting the last of childhood away from my soul.
I was helpless to save them.
Angel had tried to warn me just before supper. She had run in to the house, clutching her doll to her chest as though she had seen a ghost. She told me to keep my eyes and ears open, for she felt that a curse was about to befall us. She seemed so frightened, so serious, that I dared not disbelieve her.
"Go to Father Theo." She said. "If anything bad happens we must go to Father Theo."
My little sister had been so convincing about the danger we were in, that I did not retire for the night. I sat, fully clothed, in the doorway of the room I shared with Marc and Harry. But Father must have put something in our food for try as I might, I could not stay awake.
Screams from downstairs finally roused me but by then, there were flames all around. I rushed to my two brothers and dragged them from their beds. We huddled together in the middle of the room as the fire grew around us. I was forced to shoulder through a burning wall in order to reach the hallway. The small round window at the end of the hall led to the back yard and salvation.
Marc was too frightened to attempt the jump from the second story to the ground. I went first and tried to coax him and Harry down. They hesitated for a moment too long. I remember yelling at them, screaming. But the roof collapsed and they were gone.
I began to run, frantically searching for help. When I saw my father standing in front of the house, I stood dumbfounded. He was wearing a cloak and a satchel sat on the ground at his feet. He looked as though he was headed for the mainland on an ordinary business trip.
But there was an unholy light in his eyes. A grin of pure malice darkened his face. In one hand he held a torch and as I watched, he tossed it into the burning house. He turned, perhaps sensing my presence. As if by instinct, I dropped to the ground, cringing in the tall grass like a frightened rabbit.
It was many long minutes that I lay there, too frightened to move. When I finally summoned the courage to look about, my father was gone.
I ran.
I ran as though demons were after me. Perhaps they were.
Remembering Angel's warning, I fled through the woods toward the abbey. Father Theo welcomed me, ushering me into the church with a strong shoulder to lean on. I managed to tell him what had happened and shockingly, he believed me.
I think that perhaps Angel had warned him as well.
"You must hide, Eugene." Father Theo told me. "Your father must not find you here."
I told Father Theo that my father probably thought I was dead along with the rest of my family.
Father Theo felt I would be safer if others thought I'd perished as well.
I began to weep.
The dear priest put an affectionate arm around my shoulders. I shall never forget what he said next. "The devil walks the isle this night Eugene," he told me. "I'm afraid you've no time for grief. You must go on. Survive. For if you fail, the last spark of goodness in the Parker line will be forever extinguished."
He hugged me tightly then. "All the goodness and light that was in your brothers and your sister has only you to carry it forward. You must not let them down."
I swore to him that I would do my best. Father Theo then wrapped me in a warm blanket and bid me hide among the rafters in the bell tower. He would go and gather some things for me. Bring me a few coins from the poor box.
I waited for what seemed an eternity, shivering and sniffling in pain. When the door to the room opened again, Father Theo returned but he was not alone. The manner of the priest's speech and demeanor told me to stay hidden in my spot. I froze in terror as I realized that it was my father trailing into the tower with him.
My father was furious, growling threats and obscenities at the priest. Unaware of my presence, my father evidently felt no need to mince his words. He wanted Father Theo to give him something. My father knew that Angel had come to the church this afternoon and he believed she had given something of great value to Father Theo.
When it became apparent that the priest would be of no help, my father went into a rage. Roaring with anger my father grabbed the priest by his robes. Before I realized what was happening, he tossed Father Theo from the bell tower.
I fled through the night. The image of Father Theo's bloody, broken body on the stone steps of the chapel will forever haunt me.
I remember little of the next few days. I think that I may have gone mad for a time. I managed to sneak onto the ferry and escape the isle. I continued to travel by night, stumbling through my tears as I headed south toward London. I hid from others, crouching in the weeds at the roadside as they passed.
It was full spring when I finally reached that great city. To this day I don't know how I managed it. I was little more than skin and bones by then. But London was a good place to hide. There were many lost and wandering souls in the gutters of Whitechapel. It is a good place to lose one's self. It is a good place to become someone new.
-
March 2, 1899-
Who knew that sorrow could be such an exhausting burden? It has taken nearly a week to write this much. For all these months, I have thought of nothing but survival and earning enough money to afford passage on this ship. These long buried recollections of my loss are heavy. The toils of my pen exhaust me even more than the chore of mopping out this section of the ship.
I have made friends with the steward on this deck. He gives me a nickel a day to perform many of his lesser duties. With me at his chores, he has time to dally among the rich ladies in the dining room. Who am I to say that he should not pretend to be the first mate? He is a handsome and witty American. The girls fawn over him. And I get 35 cents a week out of the deal.
Yesterday, he got lucky. Whatever that means. But he shared his good humor with me by giving me an apple that he'd swiped from one of the cabins. Forbidden fruit never tasted so sweet.
But I digress.
Once I had reached London, I spent some days learning my way around. I discovered the best ways to obtain food and found the driest places to sleep. Father Theo's gift of literacy became a marked advantage. Reading is a talent much desired among the poor.
My ability to read landed me a job in a grocer's shop. I would be summoned to fine houses and given a list of desired goods. I would run the lists back to Mr. Talbot's store collect all the items and deliver everything requested. I prided myself on quick and courteous service. All the tips were mine to keep.
It was by mere chance that I came upon a rather profitable enterprise. Each morning, Mr. Talbot sent me to the Quarter with the hard and moldy three- day-old loaves. There I would sell them to the wretched for a tuppence. If I sold them all, Mr. Talbot would give me a percentage of the sales.
The rolls were hardly edible until I realized that a pat of butter would be a great improvement. My own mother churned butter almost daily in my old rural home, so I was ignorant of its perceived fanciness among my new neighbors. Unbeknownst to Mr. Talbot, I purchased a half-pound of butter, sliced it into thin pats and sold them for ha'penny each. I made a tidy profit from my invested purchase as well as the percentage from Mr. Talbot.
In this manner, I managed to scrounge up enough money to secure passage on this ship.
I'm not quite sure when I decided to go to America. But all my funds were budgeted toward that goal. I am told that there is so much land in the new world that they practically give it away. Hardworking men can go from rags to riches with nothing more than a strong back and a little ingenuity.
That is where I will build a new life, a life that my mother and my siblings would be proud of. A life of which even Father Theo would approve.
Dark nights on this ship are the worst. Bunked below deck as we are, when the lights are doused for the night, we are engulfed in a total blackness. It is as black as the grave. God curse me for the coward that I am but the totality of it frightens me.
I am so very lonely. Sometimes, I swear that I hear sweet Angel's voice whispering to me in the dark. I strain to understand her words, but I cannot.
March 5, 1899 -
Lenny has helped me sneak on deck. As steward, he is permitted this privilege.
I now stand in the sunshine, a cold sea breeze blowing in my face. I can see the dark outline of New York rising out of the horizon. Shining like a beacon in the harbor I can see the copper statue that marks our destination.
I am so excited that I can barely hold my pen. I even find that I am smiling. For the first time since the fire, I can smile.
Lenny has boxed my ears to reduce my enthusiasm. Ellis is a hard place he says. He warns me that the guards will take my journal if they see it. The leather binding and blank sheets could be worth half a dollar. I will need to hide anything worth keeping or it will be stolen. Put nothing in my shoes but my feet, Lenny says, for that is where the guards will search first.
According to Lenny, many of us will be given new names. The bookkeepers are weary and over worked. They have no desire to stumble over troublesome spellings. The thought occurs to me that I can choose any name I wish. Once it goes into the book that is who I will become.
I must go and gather my things. The shore grows close.
-
March 9, 1899 -
New York is much like London. People throng in the streets. The poor and bedraggled jostle down the same walkways used by the rich. Last night, I slept in the doorway of a warehouse much like the one I left in England. I had a fistfight with another boy who tried to bully me out of the spot.
I am Gene Parker, now. That is the name that the recorder placed in his book.
I deliberated about a name for the entire two days that we waited in line. Father Theo's last words to me finally clinched my decision. I must carry on in the name of my brothers and my sister. I must carry their name. I cannot erase them from my life or from my memory.
There are too many newcomers on these streets. Too few jobs to go around. I will make my way down the coast until I find a job. With a little luck I can find an apprenticeship as a typesetter or a journalist. Both are successful and well-respected professions.
The story of my journey to America is ended. I have reached a new world that beckons to me. I feel the darkness of the past twelve months beginning to slip away.
The hole it has left in me will never truly heal. But I will survive.
- -
August 19, 1934 -
Many years have passed since my last entry in this book. I had thought the horror over, confined to the occasional nightmare. Over the past thirty years, even the dreams had slipped away to almost nothing.
But I was a fool. I deluded myself into believing that good had triumphed. I assumed that evil no longer walked among us.
How wrong I was.
And now, my lovely wife lies alone in our bed upstairs, weeping. My nightmares have returned in all their fury. My screams of terror woke both her and the baby. But I refused to talk to her about my troubles.
For the first time since we met, I cannot talk to her.
My father comes between us. I've told my wife nothing about my family.
Ruth is a kind and beautiful woman. She had many suitors and could have had her pick of any of those younger men. Yet she married me. I was nearly forty-five when we first met. She came to me with a children's book for publication. Our attraction for each other was immediate.
But I was a confirmed old bachelor, a well-established and influential man in this town. It was unseemly for a man of my stature to court a girl half my age. But my Ruthie is a pistol. Her tenacity and brightness of spirit wore me down in the end. Being her husband has been one of the great blessings of my life.
Of all the gifts Ruthie has bestowed upon me, none has been as precious as our child. Our daughter is like her mother in many ways. The child's coloring and beauty reflect her mother's influence. But my little Maggie has a charm about her, a cleverness and spirit that remind me so much of my long lost sister. I often think that my sister's name suits the child so very well.
If I listen carefully, I can hear my Maggie crying too. Seeing her mother's tears frightens her as it would any other three-year-old. She does not understand.
No one can.
Today I learned that my father still lives. I read an article in the newspaper about his recent illness. Evidently he runs a rather successful company, no small feat in these hard times. He is quite wealthy and politically important. But all his wealth and power cannot protect him from the reaper.
He has suffered a stroke. He is dying.
Ruthie doesn't understand my fury. I cannot bear the thought that he may have found peace. Has he sought forgiveness from our maker? I pray not. I want him to rot in hell for all of eternity.
My anger has lain dormant for too long. Its sudden escape from my psyche frightens me as much as it does my poor wife.
He has a son, a brother that I have never met.
Does my brother know what our father did? Does he know that his sire is a murderer?
I feel myself drawn toward Delaware. I need to look that old man in the face one last time and curse him. I want to rub his nose in his failure. He did not destroy me. I have survived and built a life that he would have denied me.
I live and through my child, some part of my siblings will live as well.
-
September 1, 1934-
I have returned home. I came through the front door unannounced and promptly begged Ruthie for her forgiveness.
I told her everything, from the fire on the isle when I was a boy to these last few days when I ran off to Delaware. I was calm and deliberate during the telling but burst into tears when I was done.
Blessed woman. Ruthie said not a word but simply opened her arms to me and held me tight. I found solace in the safety of her embrace. She let me love her right there in the foyer. She is magnificent.
I don't deserve her.
Good Lord willing, this is all behind us now. My father is dead. His curse shall die with him.
I caused much commotion when I arrived at my father's bedside. He recognized me immediately, which surprised me some. No one questioned the authenticity of my heritage. My brother was not pleased to meet me. The younger man is vile and something is his eyes makes me uncomfortable. He is a dangerous being.
I have a nephew. But the boy is just as disturbing as his father. Barely seven-years-old, the child insists that everyone call him Mr. Parker. The boy stood, watching his grandfather die, without the slightest hint of emotion. It was eerie.
I had my say with the old man. He cursed me just as vehemently as I did him. According to him I should have died. I cheated him! The bastard.
I stayed in the room until it was over. I waited while he drew his last breath. Father Theo would be disappointed in me for truth be told I stayed to make sure there would be no priest. No last rites, no absolution for that devil.
Then the oddest thing happened. As I left the room, an expensively dressed Black man approached me in the hallway. My father's body was not yet cold and here was an attorney with the dead man's will in his hand.
Apparently, my father's will leaves all his assets to his eldest living son. No specific name is mentioned in the document. I am my father's eldest. Everything is mine. My initial impression is that the sums in question are rather sizeable.
I didn't care. I barely registered what the man was saying. I wanted out of that house of death. The desire to flee rose in me like a specter from my past. I want nothing from my dead father and even less from my coldhearted half-brother.
When the lawyer snuck a paper under my nose, I signed it automatically and with little thought. I was desperate to be away from that place and back home in the arms of my wife.
It was not until I was on the train coming home that I bothered to read my copy of the paper I had signed. The document was an affidavit regarding the provisions of my father's will. In essence, the paper, signed by witnesses, declares me as my father's sole heir. My signature attests to my acknowledgement of this huge endowment and my acceptance of it.
I fear that I may have made a terrible mistake.
I want nothing to do with The Centre. I want nothing built on the evil legacy my father created. I don't want his money.
I never want to set foot in Delaware again.
I have the lawyer's card. I will write to him and see what I need to do to get everything signed over to the brother I barely know.
Let him have the legacy he wants so much. Devil take them all.
-
June 30, 1959 -
I have an heir.
My daughter, Margaret, and her Major have gifted me with a grandson on this fine day. They have even named the boy after me. I finally convinced Margaret that the name Eugene is too old fashioned and snotty for a child these days so they have switched the first and middle names. He is Jarod Eugene rather than Eugene Jarod.
He has large curious eyes and a thick tuft of dark black hair. He is quite simply the handsomest boy I have ever seen. Even the nurses in the hospital agree.
I wish Ruthie could have lived long enough to see him.
I will go to the office tomorrow and have my Will altered. Young Jarod will inherit everything. I will leave him all my assets, including the ones I never touch.
I never did sign over The Centre to my half-brother. I'm not sure why. I never read the documents he sent me. The checks that roll into bank accounts with my name on them have never been touched. Maybe it is some spiteful part of me that does it to anger my dead father's spirit.
One day it will all belong to my grandson. He alone will hold the keys to The Centre.
Mr. Parker, the odd half-nephew I met at my father's sick bed, runs The Centre now. I know little of the man. I wanted nothing to do with any of them. My outrage at the loved ones who were stolen from me still clouds my judgment.
My new grandson will have a clearer head about these matters. He won't have dead brothers haunting his decisions. He will not have been robbed of his childhood the way I was. Jarod will be better able to cope with the legacy I leave him.
For you Jarod, I leave these final words. They are the same words Father Theo left with me so many years ago.
You must carry on. All the goodness and light that has sprung up in our family has only you to carry it forward.
As I hold you in my arms and gaze into your eyes, I know that you will not let us down.
-
My part in the Parker legacy is done. The rest I leave to you, my beloved grandson.
