Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 21:17:07 -0700
From: Macout Mann <macoutmann@yahoo.com>
Subject: In the Great Depression 4

This story is designed to show what life was like in the rural Southeastern
United States in the 1930s.  It covers several weeks during the summer of
1934.  I have researched as carefully as I could to make the dialogue and
events as authentic as possible.  It does contain examples of homosexual
sex, so please be warned!  Also be aware that, given the time and place,
the sex, at least in the first few chapters, may not be as frequent or as
explicit as you may be used to.  Nonetheless, I think you will find the
story appealing.  The events depicted are totally fictional, and any
resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.  Actual
places and products are referred to for the sole purpose of adding
authenticity to the story.

Please also be aware that nifty.org could not exist without contributions
from readers.  Please donate.  Donate what you are comfortable giving.  It
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It also means a lot to us authors to know that our work is being read and
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Copyright 2014 by Macout Mann.  All rights reserved.




                             IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION

                                 by Macout Mann



                                     Part 4

                                      Ezra


At six in the morning Christopher is sound asleep, when Jason comes into
his room and shakes him awake.  "Hey, Sleepyhead," he says.

Jason has just been awakened himself by the Big Ben alarm clock on his
night stand and hasn't bothered to dress, so the first thing Christopher
sees when he opens his eyes is Jason's dick.  "Uuh?"

"I forgot to tell ya.  They eat breakfast early around here.  So rise and
shine, Chris."

Christopher reluctantly climbs out of bed, still in his undershorts, but
Jason can't help but admire his torso.

"I need to shave.  Where's the hot water?" Christopher asks.

"If you gotta have hot water, Bessy will bring you some after breakfast.
Most everybody shaves with cold and takes cold sponge baths.  Saturday, one
of the hands will bring the tub around and you can have a hot bath.  Me?  I
wash in the creek," Jason responds.

Jason goes back to his room while Christopher washes up and shaves.  He
puts on a broadcloth sports shirt and cotton twill pants, remembering to
leave his underwear off.

Breakfast is always the same.  Fresh fruit, if any is in season.  Right now
there are wild blackberries, strawberries, or peaches.  Soon figs, the
small, really sweet variety.  There are two fig trees on the side of the
house.  Then there are eggs with either bacon or ham, and Cook's marvelous
biscuits.  They are thin, about two inches around, and crisp on the
outside; but they melt in your mouth when you bite into them.

It is barely after seven, when they finish breakfast.  Uncle Luke goes with
Christopher and Jason to the stable, where Will is waiting.  He's already
saddled Marge, and together the three horsemen instruct Christopher in the
niceties of mounting and dismounting.  Will leads Marge around the meadow
with Christopher on board, then Christopher guides her around by himself a
few times.  When he seems comfortable, Jason says they'll ride up to
Grandpa Ezra's place.  He's already saddled his mount.

Luke tells Will to ride along in case Christopher has any trouble, and soon
the three of them are on the road.  They begin the journey restraining the
horses' gait to a walk because of Christopher's uncertainty, but as he
gains confidence they advance to a trot.

In a little over a half hour they arrive at the house that Ezra built.  It
is an L shaped single story building with a veranda front and back.  An
open hallway separates the dining room, kitchen, pantry, and nonfunctioning
bathroom from the rest of the house.  The main house contains a wide hall
and four equal sized rooms with closets between, a parlor and three
bedrooms.  The exterior was originally painted in Victorian colors, but
they have faded over the years so the blues and reds are only vaguely
differentiated. Around the front and back doors are the panes of stained
glass so much favored in the late Eighteen Hundreds.  The rooms are all
finished in white limestone plaster and again the ceilings are very high,
but not quite as high as at the home place.

Will takes the horses to the stable, while the boys are led into the
parlor.  It is dominated by a fourteen foot pier mirror between two
windows.  There is a mammoth library table between the other two windows,
and a suite of walnut furniture in Eastlake style fills the rest of the
large room.  An unused Victorian chandelier hangs from the ceiling.

Ezra and Nanny seem delighted to see Christopher, and he has to answer the
same set of questions for the umpteenth time.  At 67 Ezra is very much the
patriarch, and Nanny is the very sweet, very fragile old Southern lady.

Ezra quizzes Christopher about Matthew, while Nanny is interested in what
Christopher's three brothers and sisters, who have visited the plantation
before, are doing.  Jason is very fond of both grandparents, but he finds
the conversation boring.  After an hour he announces that they should be
heading back so as not to be late for dinner.

"We'll be coming down to have Sunday Dinner with you all," Nanny responds,
"but I wish you boys would come to dinner with us on Friday.  I'm sure
you've never had catfish, have you Christopher?"

"No maam, but I'd sure like to," the ever-polite seventeen-year-old
answers.

"Good.  Why don't we plan on it?  I'm sure Mary wouldn't mind."

Nanny rings for Fanny, their cook and housekeeper, and tells her to go and
tell Will to bring the horses.  The grandparents have her and Elmer, who
tends to the livestock and vegetable garden.  Most of Ezra's twenty acres
lies fallow.  Elmer will also be sent to catch the catfish Nanny has
promised for dinner on Friday.

Will meets them at the veranda, and Ezra is impressed how efficiently
Christopher can already mount Marge.

They trot back to the home place and arrive in plenty of time for dinner.
Meanwhile, Jason offers to help Will weed the garden.  "Since you had to
waste all that time going with us," he says.

They pass a hoe to Christopher, but he proves to be totally inept in its
use.  He mainly watches the other two get sweaty.

When nap time comes, Jason suggests that they go swimming.  Christopher
says he'd like to, but he didn't bring a swimming suit.

"Swimming suit? What's that?" laughs Jason.  "You got a birthday suit,
aintcha, Chris?"

"If I'd known that was the deal, I'd have taken that kid up on his offer
yesterday," Christopher responds.

At the swimming hole they strip and jump into the creek and paddle around.
It's not really big enough for serious swimming.  As they rest Jason asks
if Christopher ever swims back at home.  Christopher says that there are
several public pools back in Brooklyn, some of them fifty years old or
more.  Jason says the WPA has just built one in Jackson, but he hasn't been
there yet.

Out of the blue Christopher asks, "You ever seen Will naked?"

Jason doesn't answer right away.  "What?" he finally asks.  "Why d'ya ask?"

"Just curious," Christopher answers.  "You know, I've heard that black guys
have huge cocks."

Jason laughs again.  "Well, yes.  I have seen Will bareassed.  Came on him
down here one day.  He's not supposed to be here, but he was.  And yes, he
does have one big dick."

They both laugh and jump back into the water.

Jason is puzzled, however.  Much later, after he and Christopher have gone
up to bed, he comes over to Christopher's room.  He sits on the sofa,
actually a "slipper seat" in Victorian parlance, while Christopher is
washing his face in his basin.

"Chris, I've been wondering," he begins.  "Don't think I'm prying or
anything...but I've been wondering.  Well...why you were asking about
Will."

Christopher comes over and sits in the chair next to Jason.  "Oh...I was
just curious.  You don't see many negroes up where I'm from...Oh, shit!
Why pretend?  You'll probably never see me again after I go back!  I hope
you won't say anything, but Will excites me!  You do too!  I'm a fucking
fairy!"

There is a long silence.

Finally Jason responds.  "I think I may be that way too."



Their grandmother had sent a note to Aunt Mary inviting all of them to the
fish fry on Friday.  Mary had declined, but gave her blessing for the boys
to go.  So Jason and Christopher saddle up and return to Ezra's house.

The freshly caught catfish, lightly breaded in cornmeal, salt, and black
pepper, is like nothing Christopher has ever tasted before.  Fanny has made
tartar sauce with pickles home canned last summer.  Her hush puppies are
unique, made not only with minced onion but crushed cracklings.  The meal
is topped off with sliced tomatoes, homemade mayonnaise, green onions, and
iced tea.  "Gotta have raw onions with catfish," Grandpa Ezra says.

Then for dessert there is strawberry shortcake.

Ezra uses the dinner conversation to ask Jason about Will.  "I hear that
boy, Will, can be too big for his britches," he begins.  "That so, Jason?"

"I dunno, Grandpa," Jason answers.  "I haven't thought so.  He seems
o.k. to me."

"You got to watch some of these young'uns," Ezra continues.  We gotta keep
'em in their place.  No telling what sort of ideas they might get.

"Grant Willis was telling me about this one negro woman who came in his
store wanting to be called `Missus Somebody.'  Well he told her to get out
and stay out.

"So, Jason, you better be watching that boy, Will.  Don't let him get away
with anything."

"I'll be on my toes, sir."

Jason's a Southern Boy through and through, he thinks.  Yet he wonders.
What about letting Will swim in their creek?

After dinner Jason wants to show Christopher the generator that used to
power Ezra's house.  First they walk down the open hall between the main
part of the house and the dining room and kitchen area.  Neither
Christopher nor Jason had ever seen anything like it.  The hall is covered
by a ceiling and the roof of the house but open to the elements at both
ends.  About eight feet wide, it's supposed to protect the main part of the
building from fire, yet it's part of the house itself.  Along one wall is
the ice box.  And at the back the cistern rises up to the level of the back
veranda, which is a duplicate of the front.  Jason tells Christopher that
this is the only house in the county that has a well within the house.

The house is built on a slope, so the crawl space at the front is less than
three feet, but at the back a full-grown man can easily walk underneath the
floor.  That's where the generator is.  Christopher does agree that it
looks like a miniature steam engine.  It was actually deliberately designed
that way.  Even has a section that looks like a cab.  The boys play "train"
for a few minutes before heading out to retrieve their horses.

Since Christopher has made so much progress toward becoming a horseman,
Jason suggests that they ride into Lorman, before returning to the home
place.  They arrive just before Grant Willis is going to close his store
for the afternoon.

 He introduces Christopher to the proprietor of the store, and to his
daughter, Sharon, who is also there.  She is suitably impressed both by the
handsome seventeen-year-old and the fact that he is from New York.  In fact
she is practically drooling over Christopher.

Jason wants to see if Mr. Willis has this new drink, called Kool Aid.  He'd
seen it in Jackson and he wanted to try it.  He buys two packs to take back
to the plantation.  Might be better than water, he thinks, when they are
hot and thirsty.

As they leave the store, they encounter Miles Simpson.  He's another
newcomer.  Been around about fifteen years.  Another Yankee, well a
Midwesterner.  Unlike the Osbornes, he has been accepted into the social
order of the county.  He is well met.  He understands and accepts the
culture. He has a generous nature. And he has brought in a new industry.
Bee keeping.

Miles raises bees.  He sells them to northern and Canadian bee keepers each
Spring.  It is cheaper for them to buy new bees than to keep their bees
alive during the harsh winter.  And Miles also produces a good crop of
honey to bottle and sell.

"Mr. Simpson, this is my cousin, Chris," Jason says.  "Christopher, here's
somebody whose accent you can understand."

They all laugh.

"I'm working on a drawl," Miles says.  Then he asks, "How long you goanna
be here, Chris?"

"Just a couple of weeks," Christopher replies.

"Then you'll be here for our Fourth of July barbeque.  It's quite an
affair."

"Great!" Christopher exclaims.  "See you there."

The boys trot back to the plantation, unsaddle their mounts, and before
going into the house, help themselves to a peach from a nearby tree.
Nothing tastes quite as good as tree ripened fruit straight from the tree.

"You're riding so well, we're going to have to put you on a livelier horse
than old Marge," Jason says.  "Maybe a stallion.  Give you a mask.  You can
shoot, can't you?"

"Not as good as The Lone Ranger," Christopher responds.  "We can get WXYZ,
Detroit, on our radio too."