For NaNoWriMo: The Field of Blood, part 19 and CONCLUSION

Mr. James Varick IV, in his role as editor-in-chief for the Lofton County Free Voice, draws the matter of J. Oscar Rett's death to its proper conclusion in such a way that the community can move forward positively ... get caught up on part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, and part 18 to catch up on all the twists and turns before reading the conclusion!

Like Captain Lee in his life as a colonel, James Varick IV carried the burden of command – in front of all the people that he had to lead at the Lofton County Free Voice, he stayed calm and decisive, and went into problem-solving mode in all crises. He limited his emotional gamut to encouragement and admonishment with the team, and lifted stress from others as much as he could. With people in the community who were going through issues that the Lofton County Free Voice covered, Mr. Varick was all comfort and encouragement.

Yet Mrs. Varick knew what was suffered in silence … and sometimes, if Mr. Varick had a hard editorial to write, he couldn't hold it any longer. He spent a lot of time with the publisher, Mr. Harvey Harrison, and the chief funder, Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr., and they kept him encouraged, but sometimes, it wasn't enough.

It took a while into the evening to get Mrs. Drake settled down after she found Mr. Rett's suicide note. Dell was no help, because he was not surprised and in fact angered by the suicide and the reason for it. He and his mother were both fiery and started to get into it – the Varicks buffered all that, and got them calmed down, reconciled, and to sleep. But after that, Mr. Varick still had to give shape to the official reporting – easy enough, in that the paper's own investigation had discovered the evidence showing that Mr. Rett's death was a suicide, and that Captain Hamilton's parallel investigation was likely to reach the same conclusion shortly (which it did).

Yet it was making a frame for the news, an understanding of it for a community that was convinced Mr. Rett's death was a lynching in line with all the others that had taken place in Lofton County – especially in 1967, on Tinyville's own field of blood, that was necessary, and that fell to the editor-in-chief, a man hurt, angered, grieved, and betrayed by Mr. Rett twice – once for the work at the Lofton County Black Historical Preservation Society, twice for hurting Hettie Varick Drake, his cousin whom he loved like a sister. It was necessary to editorialize in a way that allowed the community to be able to accept the truth and move forward. But then there was that other part … .

Mrs. Varick was in the kitchen when she heard her husband's notebook hitting the wall – THWACK, and then the slide down the wall. She went in to the den where he had his desk, and found him with his head on the desk, his huge fist banging rhythmically on it as well.

“How am I supposed to do this, Lord?” he said. “I want to go to the coroner's office and tear the body of that man limb from limb – how am I supposed to write calmly and helpfully about this, in a way that does good for the living? I want to take that whole notebook and just cuss that man out from one end of that notebook and all the pens I have to another! He betrayed us all and left us a mess we have no way of cleaning up! The crowing of the Tinyville Times tomorrow! The first crack in the credibility of this paper! I thank You that You would not let me call that death a lynching in print – I thank You that You withheld the paper from making that the paper's position – but now what? How do I do this in such a way that the people are helped? So that Hettie and Dell are helped? I can't do this! I can't!”

Mrs. Varick came and put her strong hands on her husband's shoulders.

“You're too tense to write, James … let me help you.”

She began working the knots out of his shoulders until he was moaning from relief.

“Lord, I thank You for giving me my Eve, my super helper, second only to You,” he said. “And thank you, Ella, for just knowing how to love me when I need it at times like this … all this has been going on and I haven't have time to process any of it.”

“I know … your entire body is holding all of it, waiting for time to process it, but you have to process it all for this editorial … but that doesn't have to be written for three hours. Leave the notebook, James, and come have dessert and relax for a while. I'm going to turn on some music for you.”

“Just keep doing what you are doing, Ella,” Mr. Varick said. “That feels so good … I'll come to dessert in a little while, but just keep doing what you are doing … .”

Mr. Varick was exhausted, running the paper and overseeing its investigation and giving support to Mrs. Drake and Dell … what he needed was relaxed sleep, and it came under Mrs. Varick's strong but tender hands. When he was soundly asleep, she put on his favorite sleep sounds and set an alarm so he would wake up in time to do the editorial: an hour and a half. She also finished dessert: Mr. Varick loved lemon icebox pie with warm caramel sauce, and she had been working on the sauce when she had heard his notepad hit the wall. She finished it, left it on warm, finished up the kitchen, looked in on the sleeping Mrs. Drake and sleeping Dell, and then checked on her husband. About fifteen minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off, she resumed a gentle massage and then, just a minute before the alarm was to go off, kissed him where his neck met his back.

Mr. Varick's eyes opened wide in the afterglow of that kiss. He reached over and turned off the alarm before it went off, and then turned on his computer. Mrs. Varick brought him a quarter of ice-cold lemon pie and drizzled warm caramel sauce all over it.

“If you would come in here and sit by me while I work, and just bring the whole pot and the pie in here, we can go on and have dessert.”

“Would you like me to brew up some coffee too?”

“No. After I get this done, I need to sleep, and sleep hard … although you are looking so good I might just do one more thing before going to sleep.”

“Bring it on, James,” said Mrs. Varick. “You know I'm ready for you – too beautiful not to be enjoyed by the best of men, and that's you. The sooner you get that editorial done and done right, the sooner you get your second dessert.”

Mr. Varick smiled … he knew he might be too tired to enjoy himself with his wife that night, but it was a nice idea of a reward, after the virtue part was done … his word processor opened, and he got down to business.

In the morning, Harvey Harrison the publisher made sure that the Varicks received 100 copies of the Lofton County Free Voice – the Varicks sent it out across the country to interested parties, and there were more and more of them. But, in the home, this meant that Mrs. Drake and Dell got one of those 100 copies and read what had been written while they were sleeping. They wept together as they read, and received a certain level of healing through what Mr. Varick had written.

“The determination of J. Oscar Rett's death as a suicide by this paper, concurrent with the conclusion of both the Tinyville police, the coroner, and Mr. Rett's own note, occasions one of the most difficult and personal editorials I have been called to write in my capacity as editor-in-chief. Mr. Rett served with me on the board of the Lofton County Black Historical Preservation Society, and was well known to me as a community servant in many important capacities. He was a man upon which many of us had built a great, unquestioned trust.

“Yet there is as much danger in putting confidence in men as the Bible says there is, without reference to color. There are both evil White men and evil Black men, and at times they work concurrently. We have written in the Free Voice extensively of the wickedness of Topia Development Group, and we regret and retract nothing that we have exposed or said. Yet it is necessary to inform with the same clarity that Topia did not defeat the Lofton County Black Historical Preservation Society and other important organizations in court due to the ingenuity of its White men – Topia had material and extensive assistance from J. Oscar Rett, who betrayed everyone and everything he touched for the money and approval of his masters at Topia, who killed himself because it was no longer enough, to bring revenge on Topia and to cement himself as a hero in our community. He chose the site of the 1967 massacre to give us a lever to use, and then, once we discovered his note, to give him credit for his devotion.

“If Mr. Rett were alive for me to slap the taste out of his mouth for attempting to run this last con, I would do that. But he has gone to his own place, the place of traitors and cowards and attention-seekers and sellouts, unrepentant, and we turn from him in shame. For if he gave us a lever, we know he could have neither forged it or put it in place. Another man, a very young man with a proud legacy of true heroism, forged that lever – and to him, we turn our attention and draw history and the present together.

“I know Delford Drake III, the grandson of the hero of the 1967 massacre. He is 16, and like many of our young Black men in Lofton County, struggling with how he is supposed to take up a legacy the intervening generations between his grandfather and him have largely let fall to the ground. I say this to the shame of all living Black adults who have missed every opportunity to put their hands to the plow and move themselves and their families forward in freedom. We have lost much since we abandoned our institutions to be part of institutions run by people who still hate us – and the loss is felt by the youth, who know we have given up on the inheritance we should be passing to them, who know we have consumed it all on our lusts for significance in the eyes of those who hate us and them.

“Delford Drake III decided to take his protest to the steps of Tinyville City Hall, which until convinced of the wicked recklessness of Topia was determined to pave over the site of the 1967 massacre and put up merry-go-rounds and other recreation. Delford was done with both them and us in our indolence, and prepared to commit public suicide in a last, desperate attempt to shake us awake – to give his life, since nothing else seemed to be working. His cries and that of his entire generation seem always to be falling on deaf ears both Black and White – he knows the history of this country well enough to know only the shedding of blood avails to make great movement.

“In this sincere and quite imperfect effort, Delford was intercepted, and convinced that another way would be found that would not require him dying on the courthouse steps. He is but 16. He still wants to believe us. To me, and many others, the thought that we will lose him, and millions of others, is what keeps us striving.

“Yet for one man, a man of twisted ego and designs, Delford's act was both an affront – he wrote in his note that Delford had shown him up – and an opportunity, an opportunity to escape the onset of cancer, to revenge himself on those at Topia who at last showed their true racist color, and to cement his place as a hero in the eyes of the Black community of Lofton County. It was for this purpose, and none other, that J. Oscar Rett defiled the place where Delford Drake Sr. and 55 other Black men, women, and children gave their lives for the greater advancement of the freedom our people.

“Yet we will not allow the blood of a traitor to wash out the history of the true heroes of the 1967 massacre. Mr. Rett will have a funeral and of course all that goes with that – but this is his epitaph: he betrayed us and we reject him. Let his act be drowned and his name be forgotten next to Delford Drake Sr., whose quick thinking and selfless acts saved the number of dead in the massacre from being higher than it was – next to the name of Sergeant Delford Drake Jr., who in the middle of an ambush in Afghanistan gave his life to save five soldiers from his unit – next to the name of Delford Drake III, whose determination spurred us to act where we might have given up, and at last have used all that was available to us to push through for victory in preserving that field – Delford Drake Field, for so we call it and intend for the world to follow our lead – from becoming a recreation spot.

“The war is not won yet for Delford Drake Field, but we fight on. The traitor removed himself from our midst and went to his own place, for which we thank God. We fight on. The generations of Delford Drake Jr. and Sr. are still here, and many are standing and fighting with us. Delford Drake III and his generation are here standing and fighting with us, and the generation of his younger siblings look to us. Our hearts are hurt, angered, betrayed, grieved, chastened to greater vigilance against evil that has come within as well as evil pressing from without. We take our wounds and our lessons today, and tomorrow, we move on. There is much work to be done and many sincere hearts and hands to do it – who have done it, who are doing it, and who will continue to do it. Let the work be done, for the greater advancement of our shared freedom.”

This editorial that Mr. Varick had struggled to write bowed down the hearts of many in Lofton County, across age groups and races – it was a moment in which many people recognized their struggle for freedom and a decent life in a wicked, double-crossing world as not being a separate thing from the struggle of Black people in Lofton County who wanted the same thing. Not that it was universally well-received – it was a flashpoint as much as it was a touch point, because there were other organizations and people who had cause to be worried that the scrutiny of the Lofton County Free Voice would soon be turning on them. Yet, it resonated, and indeed, it denied J. Oscar Rett of what he had wanted most – attention.

“And where he is,” Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr. had hissed venomously, “he either has been informed to increase his torments or is in such torment it no longer matters, because he has bigger problems he will never be able to solve.”

In the meantime, the legacy of the Stepforths and Drakes, intertwined as they had been all along, came back together in power – Thomas Stepforth Sr. had looked up to Delford Drake Sr. as an elder brother, and had been devastated by his death, but spurred by it to get ready to do something in and about Lofton County, someday, somehow … and so when his own grandchild, Thomas Stepforth III, had began to head down that path carefully laid out for him in high school to end up in the new private prison Lofton County had enriched itself by feeding, grandfather Stepforth had returned at last to Lofton County, resources in hand, to do what Delford Drake Sr. had burned into his heart.

So, it warmed grandfather Stepforth's heart greatly to see his own son, Major Thomas Stepforth, Jr. returned home with the mind of doing something for his own son and those like him – turning a guesthouse into a study hall so Black boys struggling in the local public school could go on independent study and do it in a place where Black people who loved them could give the support and structure of their presence, specific expertise, and life experience. It especially warmed grandfather Stepforth's heart to see Delford Drake III finally make up his mind to join study hall, and thus become warm friends with Thomas Stepforth III.

It warmed more than grandfather Stepforth's heart to see Mrs. Hettie Varick Drake coming with her son, coming early so they could work together in what was their family business of medical billing and coding remotely before he went to do his school work and she finished all that up before turning her attention to tutoring whoever needed it in math. The WNBA star had enjoyed both academic and athletic scholarships in college, and had picked up a lot of good business sense from Delford Drake Jr. She had brought it all together to keep it together and pass it on to their son – and, she had not been shaken from that, although it was inevitable that so stunning a woman would not be pursued by any man confident enough to think he might have a chance, and thus inevitable that a woman of her passion would not temporarily get distracted.

Mr. Rett had tried it. For all the pomp and circumstance Delford her son had made of it, and for all the hurt Mrs. Drake felt, it had only been six months before she had broken it off and begun to return to center: making sure her Dell, and the boys around him, had the best chances possible at life. Any man who wanted in would have to already be in – be about the work, and for real this time. Mr. Rett had betrayed that trust, having been the traitor inside. It would be a long time before Mrs. Drake even considered giving anyone else a chance. But that was all right. She had enough on her hands, and she was taking the right steps to get herself and her son where they needed to be – in the right place, at the right time, for him to mature into a strong man and her to continue to mature as a woman and potentially find the right mate. They were in a good place – and Mr. Stepforth Sr.'s whole plan was to keep it that way.

“Hey, good morning, Mr. Stepforth Sr.!” Delford Drake III said as he came up and exchanged a loud high-five and then a quick hug with the older man.

“Good morning, Delford,” Mr. Stepforth said. “How are you, young man?”

“Getting better, Mr. Stepforth Sr., getting a whole lot better.”

“And your mother, young sir?”

“Getting better, Mr. Stepforth Sr., getting a whole lot better. We're both ready to get our work in, that's for sure.”

“Good idea. Let's all do that today.”