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Part 2
Before long, I was sitting in my shitbox Toyota, following the brand new Mercedes that the lawyer was driving through the city. The AC was busted and this fall had not seen any cooldown from the summer months, so I could already feel the sweat soaking through my undershirt in the steamy sedan. Rolling down the windows was of little help, but at least the breeze felt like it was keeping me bound to reality. On a sharp turn, my book bag rolled and fell on to the floor of my car, landing on a small pile of books. I kept book everywhere and when I wasn’t grading or teaching, I was reading. In my cassette player was one of Dr. Thurston’s early lectures on gender assignment in ancient tongues, but it was just drifting around my skull, never really gaining purchase. I noted to myself that I’d need to rewind it at some point, but I needed every bit of sensory input to try to ground me at this point. It was only after ten minutes that it occurred to me to switch to the radio. When I did, my car was already set to the oldies station, one of the only channels I can listen to. From my speakers, the bouncy guitar immediately calmed me, and I found myself singing along to John Fogerty’s drawling voice.
“I hear hurricanes a’blowing, I know the end is coming soon, I fear rivers overflowing, I hear the voice of rage and ruin…” But as quickly as some semblance of normalcy began to settle me down, the Mercedes took a quick turn into a side road that may have been paved once upon a time, but now just looked like flattened earth. My nerves began to rise again as the familiar structures of city living faded away far too quickly. In what seemed like only a minute of driving, I couldn’t see any streetlights and couldn’t hear any sounds of traffic. It was almost like crossing a boundary between normal city life and the mythical and mysterious bayou of Louisiana’s past. These feelings were not at all alleviated when we followed a curve around a glade of thick trees and shrubbery to see what had to be the estate.
On a well-groomed hill dressed with unkempt honeysuckle bushes and weeping willows stood a massive gothic mansion with fading white paint and tall, pointed spires. While it didn’t have the obvious facial approximation of the house in the Amityville Horror, that comparison was the first thought that popped into my head. It felt ominously beautiful and, strangely, as if it had accumulated wisdom through its many decades of existence. Even being near it put me in some sort of dark reverie, both repulsing me and drawing me closer at the same time. It seemed like a home that contained dark and timeless knowledge that it would whisper to any person willing to listen.
On the north side of the estate, the Mercedes slowed to a stop in front of a separate building that was very clearly built to complement the home’s gothic façade. It was large, easily able to house a kid’s football field, and about five hundred feet from the house proper. I pulled in next to the young automaton’s car and turned off my ignition, jiggling my keys to free them from their tight purchase in the broken interface. I’d gotten used to this little ritual of fighting my keys from my car and caught myself halfway through a thought about how expensive it would be to fix it, realizing that probably wouldn’t be a concern any more. Hell, I might even be able to purchase a new vehicle.
Stepping out of the car and slamming the door, I turned to face Jonathon Briggs, who was already waiting at the front door of what I could now clearly see was a huge separate garage. I shouted over the still turning engine as it began it slow crawl toward sleep. “Just how old is this place?”
“I believe it was built around 1850, though I might be off by a few years. It spent a lot of time abandoned, though, and your uncle seemed to have purchased it with a handsome discount.” I knew even with a ‘handsome discount’, this place could not have been cheap.
“So, all of this is really gonna be mine? This garage- “
“Carriage house.”
“Right. Carriage house. This carriage house alone could hold three of my apartments in it.”
At this, the lawyer cracked a smile, the first emotion I’d seen all day. “Nathan, once our paperwork is taken care of and submitted through the proper channels, it will hold three of your cars, not including the one you just drove here.”
At this, my thoughts once again stopped. I hadn’t expected much aside from the home, after all, wasn’t my uncle psychologically incapable of caring for me after my family’s death? How could he have accrued so much wealth? “Just what sort of inheritance is this?” I asked, simply because these things didn’t happen. Two hours ago, I had been the same as I always was; resigned to living low on whatever wages my research and explorations would supply. I had never really wanted to be rich, I only wanted knowledge. “And just who was this uncle of mine?”
“We’ll answer those questions soon enough, Nathan. First, let me show you the house. Then, we can sit in the library and go over the requisite paperwork. With any luck, you could move in as early as tomorrow. If you so desire, that is.” At the mention of a library, my heart skipped a beat. A full library? Images flashed to my mind of warm wood furniture and leather bound books, and this was when my heart warmed even more to this grim mansion. Any place that held a library couldn’t be as unnerving as I’d first seen the house.
“Okay, Mr. Briggs. That sounds great. Can we look in the garage – er – carriage house before the grand tour?”
“Of course,” he said as he pulled out a set of jingling keys. He smiled again, and it occurred to me that this stiff and efficient man must be a car guy, and he was about to show me his favorite part of the estate. Since I’d asked, more as a tactic to get my head together than out of any real interest in a car that served any higher function than to get from A to B, I realized I’d have to feign a greater deal of interest than I’d hoped. “I believe these will certainly spark your interest.” After unlocking a heavy duty padlock, he pulled the rusted latch and slid open the large door revealing three immaculately clean cars, headlights glinting almost flirtatiously in the sun. On the left was a high end SUV that was probably marketed to be rugged. On the right was a tasteful, high end sedan that looked like something a wealthy father figure would drive. However, the car in the middle caught my eye, as undiscerning as it was in these matters. Jonathon Briggs seemed to notice, and I have to assume that he was excited about it too. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? A 1968 Aston Martin DB6. James Bond’s car, and cherry to boot.” Yeah, he was definitely a car guy. All I saw were sleek lines that seemed almost suggestively feminine. I’d never seen a car as sexual before, and while I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to call it sexy, I could see why the lawyer insisted on calling it a she.
“Yeah,” I replied, fumbling for words. “It really is.” At this point, my mind was reeling from everything, and sentences were becoming harder and harder to form. After talking more about horsepower, torque, or whatever it is that makes a car any different from any other car, Briggs led me to the carriage house’s far end, where I could see an airboat sitting in a small dock in front of another large door.
“This boat can take you most anywhere on the property, as all of the land is primarily bayou.” I was not terribly interested in this aspect, but took the time to ask about the difference between a swamp and a bayou. “Well, I’m not a local so I may be wrong,” Briggs said thoughtfully, “but I think a bayou has running water. Anyway, that’s what we have here.” Feeling embarrassed about the pointlessness of my question, I shut my mouth and let him lead me up the slight incline to the home. On the walk, he told me some about the home’s history, but only in the vaguest terms. I think he only did a speed-read of the relevant facts, but I didn’t press any of the details. “This manor was built around 1850, originally as a second home for a plantation owner, though the family soon abandoned the state after a bad growing season. I think the ending of slavery may have also played a part in their downfall, but I’m not certain. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some documentation about the house’s history in the library, though I wouldn’t even know where to begin. You’ll see why soon enough.”
At this point, he swung open the front doors to the mansion and his words ceased to have meaning. Massive parlor windows let in the late afternoon sun and the foyer smelled like old leather and dust. Rich hardwood floors spread ahead of me, beckoning me to explore this spectacular place. Everything was furnished exactly as I would have chosen; leather, hardwood, and antiques abounded and my head spun crazily with my good fortune. It was filled with the sort of character and history that had fascinated me since my childhood, when I’d come to loathe the bland and sterile feeling of every foster home I lived it. It felt, above all else, alive. With every creaking stair I heard the persistent heartbeat of history, and each cool draft was the breath of life. Now I understood the power that this house held, and I knew the many years it stood were a testament to history’s will to live and be explored. Foyer, parlor, bedrooms, sitting rooms (one of which held a fully stocked humidor), and bedrooms all greeted me with a dizzying and mystical force.
What felt like only minutes, but must have been close to an hour, passed in this strange whimsy of unexpected delight and curiosity before the tour was complete. “Well, Mr. Wharton, may I show you the library so we can begin working on the requisite paperwork?” That word snapped me out of my daze: Library. Briggs seemed tired from the long tour of the estate, so I knew I would have to do most of my bibliographic exploration when the house was mine. It was, in some ways, startling how quickly that idea became normal to me, though a small part of my heart held reservations because things this good simply did not happen.
“Oh, yes. Please. I’m sorry for how long this has taken, I’m sure you’re busy. It’s just- “
Here Briggs cut me off. “Don’t worry about it Mr. Wharton. I understand that this is all pretty…” he paused, searching for the words. “Well, I suppose a little bluntness never hurt anybody. This is pretty damned bizarre, and I’m sure very overwhelming for you.”
The strangeness of the situation was not why things took so long, but I felt expressing my true delight would have seemed both greedy and immature, so I nodded in agreement. I followed him down a darkened hallway, only vaguely noting him pointing out that some of the lights weren’t functional for some reason or other. The hallway took a stark curve and then descended into steep, plush stairs that led to a thick ebony door. I noticed this simply because the door itself seemed so out of place in a home filled with warm and earthy tones. Briggs pulled out his set of keys once more and slid one into the door.
“Umm, you’re taking me to the library, right? Why is it locked?”
To this, he turned around and expressed only the second emotion I’d seen that day: confusion. “Honestly Mr. Wharton, your guess is as good as mine. I can’t imagine why the door would even need a lock, let alone why it’s been kept locked. Maybe there are some books of value? Goodness knows I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.” At this I had to hold my heart in check. Were there antique books here? First editions? Something even more interesting? “I must warn you though, this is the room where your uncle…”
My glee quickly turned sour at the idea of desecrating a library with the idea of suicide, but I had to push those thoughts away. “Oh. Uh. Wow. Is there still any… You know?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. We wouldn’t be allowed down here if there were. There may still be some smell, but that’s nothing a few candles or some Febreze can’t handle.”
I grimaced in shock and disgust at this comment made so plainly. “And you’re sure we should do the business down here?” The idea of the smell infecting everything in the library made me sick before we even walked in.
At my reaction, Briggs let out an unsettlingly tinny laugh. “I’m sorry, Nathan. There isn’t any smell. I thought that you knew I was joking.”
There was a slightly awkward silence and I kind of resented him, this robotic man laughing at my completely human disgust. “Oh, well that’s a relief.” I now wished that he’d maintained the emotionless persona of when we’d first met, because at least that guy wouldn’t have made a dead body smell.
“I really do apologize,” Briggs said to me, with a warm and friendly tone. “I am new to the firm and this is actually my first ever experience with death. I guess I didn’t respond too well, and certainly not reflective of my station.”
At this I tried to seem as warm back to him. “Honestly, don’t worry about it. You’re only human.” I laughed at that final remark in my head, because I still saw am as more of a Lawyer-Bot than a real, flesh and blood human.
After that uncomfortable exchange passed, Briggs pushed open the heavy door and turned on a light switch, softly illuminating a room that was bigger than our own university library. The walls on either side were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the room was segmented in two by a narrow walkway flanked on each side by six more rows of bookshelves. At the apex of the hallway was a massive ebony desk sitting in the light red glare of a stained glass window. The diamond shimmers of the glass showed, in remarkable detail, a nude man with frayed wings stretching out on either side of his torso. He seemed to be falling from a bright golden sky to a deep red expanse. It was simultaneously compelling in its beauty and disturbing in its consequences. I walked toward it, not noticing what the young lawyer was saying. I had to see the title and determine why somebody would choose this piece to adorn such a beautiful library. However, there was an empty and discolored segment of wall where the title should have been. I turned back to Briggs and gestured at the stained glass. “Icarus?”
He looked up at me from his briefcase, over the edge of newly placed reading glasses. “Hmm? Oh, you know, it’s funny: I had the same thought. But according to building records, that piece is titled The Fall of Lucifer.”
“Oh, that’s certainly an interesting choice.” I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide my feelings about it with a neutral comment.
"I know exactly how you feel, Mr. Wharton. It gives me the chills just looking at it. But if you so desire, that can be changed as soon as you own this house and all of your uncle’s possessions.” He had, in a flash, taken a seat at the oversized desk and turned on a small lamp to give the documents some clean white light. “Now, most of these require only a simple signature, but I’m also going to need your information to confirm your identity, though it’s really only a formality.” He said those last few words while nodding at a pile of paperwork sitting on top of a large, leather bound book to my immediate right. “Those are your work, correct? And your transcripts?”
I reached over, grabbing the papers and feeling a sudden chill as I touched them. Another draft in this ancient house. I thought to myself how surprising it was that my uncle didn’t die from a chill, or perhaps pneumonia. Flipping quickly through the sheaves of printer paper, I saw it was more than that. It was nearly every paper I’d written since my acceptance to Louisiana State University. Why would he have gone back this far? How? I thought these things were private. I looked back where they had been and saw a newspaper clipping resting on the large, skin-toned book. I reached toward it until I saw the picture. That road. The mangled mess that used to be a car. It was from my parents’ death. I stopped mid-reach and pulled my hand back, again feeling a chill from that side of the table. “Uh, yes. They’re all me.”
Briggs smiled perfunctorily at me and went back to scanning his papers. “Good. This is actually a remarkably simple case. Your uncle, despite his mental issues later in life, was quite an astute businessman in these parts. From the looks of things, he owned a major part of twelve local chains, primarily food service, though he also owned a gallery in New Orleans and had some stock in an oil company. About six months ago, he sold all of his holdings, cashing in everything into one very ample rainy day fund.”
“How much-?” I stopped myself mid-sentence, not sure if this was rude.
“Well, it seems to have added to roughly two hundred fifty million dollars. Not counting the value of this property and his other belongings.” My ears rang and my stomach churned at just the mention of this sum. It couldn’t be possible. I felt faint. Briggs noticed and paused to allow me to catch up. “I know, it’s quite the windfall. As I’m sure you know, all inheritance is untaxed, meaning all of these assets will be transferred to you, minus a very miniscule fee to my firm.” I thought to myself that the fee could be two hundred forty-nine million dollars and I’d still have no idea how to spend that much money, but held my tongue. “Now, Mr. Wharton, I need you to sign these forms and I’ll take a look at your identification. In addition, the final form is for my firm’s fee, which, due to the size of this estate, will be fifteen thousand dollars.” Penny change, in the big scheme of things. I signed everything he handed me and returned the papers back to his thin hands. As he read through everything, I looked back where the newspaper clippings still sat, and it seemed to me as though they were closer to me than I remembered, as if the book they’d been sitting on had scooted close to me without me noticing. I knew that couldn’t be the case, and I was probably just tired and overwhelmed. It had been quite a day, after all, and that was putting it lightly. As I stared at the strange book, it finally occurred to me that the lettering on the spine was unlike any I’d ever seen. It seemed almost pictorial, but complex. At least, that’s how it seemed upon a single glance. I squinted at it, though I couldn’t make out all the details through the glinting red light from the stained glass window. As I began to reach over, just to take a peek at this mysterious tome, I was brought out of my trance by the loud snapping of the young lawyer’s briefcase.
“Well, Mr. Wharton, it’s been a pleasure. I believe that’s all we can do today. Shall I escort you out?”
“Umm, yeah. Sure. I think that would be good. I do still have some grading to do tonight, if I can even focus.” Briggs smiled at this and led me out of the library. As we walked, that mysterious book seemed to beckon me, and the library felt warm and comfortable. I turned around once more to sneak one more peek at it, which my escort must have noticed.
“Don’t worry, Nathan. Everything is in line and you should hopefully receive a call tomorrow so we can set a date for you to pick up the keys and your uncle’s financial information. Until then, just try to live your life normally.”
As if normal meant anything to me anymore.