Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,129
understood this. When he created Christian America and then moved from the pulpit into politics, when he pulled religion and government together and cemented the link with money from rich businessmen, he created what should have been an unstoppable drive to restore the country. And he became my teacher.
I love my Uncle Marc. There were times when I was more than half in love with him. He was so good-looking, and a beautiful person, male or female, can get away with saying and doing things that would destroy a plainer one. I never stopped loving him. Even my mother, I think, loved him in spite of herself.
What Uncle Marc had been through as a slave marked him, I’m sure, but I don’t know how much. How can you know what a man would be like if he had grown up unmarked by horror? What did my mother’s time as a beaten, robbed, raped slave do to her? She was always a woman of obsessive purpose and great physical courage. She had always been willing to sacrifice others to what she believed was right. She recognized that last characteristic in Uncle Marc, but I don’t believe she ever saw it clearly in herself.
FROM The Journals of Lauren Oya Olamina
MONDAY, MAY 14, 2035
I met with my brother earlier tonight.
I spent the day helping my latest employer—a likable old guy full of stories of his adventures as a young man in the 1970s. He was a singer and guitar player, with a band. They traveled the world, played raucous music, and had wild sex with hundreds, maybe thousands, of eager young girls. Lies, I suppose.
We put in a vegetable garden and pruned some of the dead limbs from his fruit trees. I don’t mean “we,” of course. He said, “Well, how about we do this?” Or, “Do you think we can do that?” And he tried to help, and that was all right. He needed to feel useful, just as he needed someone to hear his outrageous stories. He told me he was 88 years old. His two sons are dead. His middle-aged granddaughter and his several young great-grandchildren live in Edmonton, Alberta, up in Canada. He was alone except for a neighbor lady who looked in now and then. And she was 74 herself.
He said I could stay as long as I wanted to if I would help him out in the house and outside. The house wasn’t in good shape. It had been neglected for years. I couldn’t have done all the repairs, of course, even if he could have afforded the needed materials. But I decided to stay for a few days to do what I could. I didn’t dare stay long enough for him to begin to depend on me, but a few days.
I thought that would give me a base to work from while I got to know my brother again.
I’m trying to decide how to talk about my meeting with Marc. Tonight’s walk back to the old man’s house has helped me to relax a little, calm down a little. But not enough.
Marc was waiting near the long dinner line when I arrived. He looked so handsome and at ease in his clean, stylish, casual clothing. He had worn a dark blue suit when he preached the night before, and he had managed, even as he told a couple of hundred thieves and winos how awful I was, to look startlingly beautiful.
“Marc,” I said.
He jumped, then turned to stare at me. He had glanced in my direction, but it was obvious that he hadn’t recognized me until I spoke to him. He had been encouraging a man in line ahead of me to accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and let Jesus help with his drinking problem. It seemed that the CA Center had a rigorous drying-out program, and Marc had been working hard to sell it.
“Let’s take a walk around the corner and talk,” I said, and before he could recover or answer, I turned and walked away, certain that he would follow. He did. We were well away from the line and well away from any listening ears when he caught up.
“Lauren!” he said. “My God, Lauren, is it you? What in hell are you—?”
I led him around the corner, out of sight of the line, and onto a dirty little side street that led to the bay. I went on several steps down that street, then stopped and turned and looked at him.