I never knew Momma. From the stories I heard she wasn't much; poor white trash, dirty blond hair (the color, not hygiene), plain features, a bit on the short side. What there was of her looked tired and much older than her 19 years. There was an old newspaper photo of her, but it was lost due to age and handling.
Her Daddy was a mean old man who hated everyone. His wife grew tired of his mean, miserly ways and ran off with a trucker who happened to pass through town. Momma took most of his anger after that.
Momma used to work down at the diner; the same one her Momma ran off from, with the trucker. She was a shy young thing from the reports I heard. Her fear of men was to be expected after the poor treatment by her father.
There was a young fellow who came through town every so often; he was a traveling salesman. It took almost a year for him to get Momma's attention. It took even longer to get her to accompany him on a date. I heard they went to a movie, no one remembers which one.
Afterward they went to the lake to watch the sub races. He managed to get into her panties that night. The next day he was gone again. When he returned 5 months later Momma told him she was pregnant. He swore it was not his and called her a whore. Then he was gone again the next day.
She saw him again 3 months later; when she tried to talk to him her beat her badly and dumped her out along the Old Swamp Road in the dead of the night. He drove off that night and never returned to the area. He did not know that old Rupert saw him push her out.
Rupert was a share cropper. His shack was not much, but it was almost warm in the winter and dry all year round.
Rupert never went to school; his Mother taught him to read and do math and to plant a garden. He never knew his father. His mother died of the flu when he was 16. She had promised to tell him who his father was when he turned 18.
Even though they didn't own the land he, and his mother, never paid rent. They just paid the taxes each year. He never knew who owned the property. She didn't say.
Rupert knew better than to go after the authorities as he was coal black and the girl who was thrown out was a white as the snow. His only hope was to get Ms. Dolly who owned the diner to come over and take the girl to the clinic. The walk was over 6 miles; by the time they got back she had died. Lying on the bed between her legs was a tiny baby boy. He was very much alive.
Ms. Dolly and Rupert buried Momma out back behind the shack beside his mother. The next year she and Rupert planted a pink rose on her grave. His mother already had a bright red one. They both put out the most fragrant, beautiful flowers I have ever seen.
The rumor spread that Momma had left with the man. I stayed with Rupert.
Ms. Dolly made sure we had enough to eat. It sure was difficult to get Rupert to accept any kind of help. Many times she just put it on the ground and drove off knowing he wouldn't waste good food.
I was easy to hide for the first 8 years. His shack was about 300 feet off the road and there was a bend on the wooded lane to the house, which hid it.
For the first 6 years I was just Boy. There were no toys or the money to buy them. For birthdays I was allowed to select what we ate for dinner. On my sixth birthday he allowed me to pick my name. It was difficult to choose.
There was never any secret as to how I came to live with him. Each year on my birthday he would tell me the story until I was able to recite it back to him. Then each year I told it to him, he would gently correct anything left out or errors in my telling the story.
Every evening he read from the Bible to me. We always stopped when the light was too dim to read any further. We rose with the sun and went to bed when it went down. Candles and lanterns were for special times or if needed.
By the time I was five I was reading and doing simple math. By my sixth birthday his eyes were beginning to fail; so I took over the daily reading.
As was our custom we would start from the front and work to the back of the book and then repeat it. That evening I read the story of Joseph and how he was sold into slavery. I kept reading the story until he returned to his father and forgave his brothers.
"Rupert." I said "I want to be called Joseph. I think my story is sort of like his. Neither my Momma nor I were wanted. My Momma was out of the car hoping I would die with her. I am thankful that I have a different daddy instead of him. We both care for each other as if we were kin."
The next week I told him "I have decided to forgive my real father for the way he treated me and Momma." Rupert smiled.
I was close to my 8th birthday when the sheriff came down the lane and saw me. I took off at a trot into the woods. The sheriff asked who I was.
Rupert just simply replied that "...he was out one day and when he came back I was there."
When asked when that was he just replied "Been a while back. He comes in for meals every now and then. I taught him to read and write. He told me his name is Joseph, like the man in the Bible."
The sheriff came by often for a while but never saw me again.
Things were fine for a while except that Rupert was getting older and slower. I took care of him more than he took care of me. We still went into the fields every day to work. "Idle hands are the devils work" he told me.
To help with things I was working mornings at Ms Dolly's place. We used the money to fix the house up. I worked in the back doing the dishes and was learning to cook simple dishes. I walked the 2 miles to her place and she took me the rest of the way to work. After the noon rush she would drive me back home with a meal for Rupert. One day he did not return from the fields to softly chide Ms, Dolly for spoiling me by driving me home. I went looking for him and found him asleep under his favorite oak. I woke him and we walked back to eat. He seemed to be a little slower that day. After eating he decided to take a nap in his hammock out in the yard.
As I help him into the hammock he said "Always remember, I love you as if you were my own."
I told Him I loved him too. When I checked on him an hour later he was dead. He had known his time was near. I had wondered why he chose that day to tell me he loved me; it was understood by our actions and kind words with each other that it was true.
The sheriff went up or down the road 3 or 4 times a day; so I wrapped Rupert in a clean sheet and left him in the hammock for the time being. Then I walked out to wait for the sheriff to come by. Rupert had instructed me years ago in what to do when he died.
The look of surprise on the sheriff's face to see me standing at the end of the lane to flag him down was amusing, to say the least. For years he would get a short glimpse of me and I would melt into the woods and be gone. Now I was waiting for him and flagging him down.
I explained that Rupert had died and he needed to call the people that verify that; he wanted to be buried beside his mother. It took ¾ of an hour or better for the man in the black car to come out and examine him. "Yep, he's dead." was all he said. He wrote some information in a book and gave me a sheet of paper with some numbers on it.
"Take this to the court house next week and they will give you the paperwork that says he was examined and is dead.
Shortly after he left Ms Dolly came flying into the place, she had heard the call on the police radio. I had dug the grave by then and placed him in it. She had brought her preacher along with her; the man said a few prayers and we covered him with dirt. The next week she brought a white rose for me to plant on his grave. She said she chose white because "...he was a saint to have taken me in and raised me when no one else would have wanted me. He did a fine job; you are a wonderful young man.
The next week a young woman who looked to be only a few years older than me, came by from Children's Services. She asked all kinds of questions. I told her all the facts as Rupert had told me. She did the math and said "You need to come with me since you are still under 18 years old."
