Heritage

Tensions grow in a small town over the cultural meaning of a local landmark.

Heritage

by Damon Nomad

          Clay heard a quiet knock at the back door as he sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. He knew it was Lester. Nobody else would come to the door so early. In fact, no one else ever came to visit. "Come in, Lester." They had been neighbors for nearly thirty years.
          "How'd you know it was me?" He came through the back door with a basket. "Got some fresh eggs."
          "Thanks. Have some coffee and take a load off. Put the eggs on the counter."
          Lester poured a cup of coffee and sat down across from Clay.
          They sat quietly for a few minutes, and then Lester spoke, "I'm getting worried for you. What might happen now that you're nearly done. The tension in town is growing the past few months."
          Lester mumbled, "You should never had started this."
          "My business, Lester. No skin off your nose."
          "Cost you your wife. Sandy is a good --"
          Clay cut him off. "Don't go there. I told Sandy before getting married what my plan was. I never hid it from her. I told her it was something I needed to accomplish."
          Lester's voice was a little sharper, "She never expected it to be a decades-long obsession. Never took her on a vacation, how many hours --"
          Clay nearly shouted, "Fret about what happened to your own wife. Not mine."
          Lester stood up. "She died." His voice trembled, "Of cancer. What's wrong with you?"
          "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, Sit down." He paused, "Just don't bring up Sandy. She left me nearly fifteen years ago, and it's still painful."
          Lester sat back down. "Yeah, okay."
          "Why are you bringing this all up anyway?"
          "Rumor circulating around town that you talked to a lawyer in the city about filing for historical heritage status for the place."
          Lester continued, "A lot of people in this county are already angry about what you're doing. They don't understand why." He paused, "Heck, I don't understand why you're doin' it. Spent every spare dime you've got on --"
          Clay cut him off again as he stood up. "I don't owe anyone an explanation, other than Sandy. I explained myself to her, but it wasn't enough."
          Clay tapped on the table. "I need to get to the building supplies yard and then to the plantation. Thanks for the eggs."
          Lester stood up, "Watch your back, Clay." He headed out the back door.
          ***
          Harold Moore waved as Clay came through the door. "Mornin', Clay. Always the first customer. What you need'n today?"
          "Good morning." Clay moved to the counter and handed Harold a sheet of paper. "Some dentil and scribe molding."
          "Yeah, okay, we got this." He waved at a younger man and handed him the list. "Chase this down for Mr. Sanders."
          Moore looked at Clay, "You must be nearly done. Darn impressive. You did everything right. Even the electrical and plumbing?"
          "Yeah, only me."
          "I know you were at this when my daddy owned this place. How many years you been working on it?" Moore was about ten years younger than Clay. They had both spent their entire lives in Willow Creek.
          "Thirty-two years. Nearly full-time since I retired, three years ago."
          "There are a lot of us who appreciate what you're doing. You're saving a piece of our community's heritage. Part of our ancestors' way of life in these parts."
          Clay shrugged, "It is a part of our history. A part of my family's story, going back six generations."
          "Some of my friends and myself are ready to stand behind you as you finish this up. There are some agitators and loudmouths that might cause you some problems."
          He added in a whisper, "I've got some influence in the Liberty Front."
          "I don't want to get involved in any kind of scuffles. I just want to finish this."
          "Well, you got people covering your back." He paused, "Here comes your trim work. Same as usual, two percent over my cost."
          "I appreciate the discount."
          ***
          A few weeks later, Clay pushed a large dolly loaded with a rented floor buffer and cans of hardwood floor finish as he left the hardware store. He was running late and wanted to get home and eat dinner. He would cover these things with a tarp in the truck overnight.
          He felt someone grab him from behind as he lowered the rear door of the pickup truck. Someone strong enough to throw him to the ground.
          A young male voice shouted, "Watch your step. Master Sanders." Then someone kicked him in the back.
          Clay covered his head with his arms and curled up in a ball. He could hear the movement of two or three people in the gravel parking area and felt two more kicks. One to his back and the other to his legs.
          He heard the voice of an older man, "You three. Get off that man."
          "Leave us to it." A younger voice shouted back.
          "Get out of here now or I'll get the sheriff on you."
          Clay opened his eyes and saw the black minister of the Baptist church standing between him and three black men, all in their early twenties. He didn't know the reverend's name, but knew who he was.
          One of the men tapped the pastor on the chest. "You need to stand with your own people. Old man."
          The minister stood his ground. "Leave or answer to the law."
          The three hustled away as Clay stood up. He shuffled over to the minister. "Clay Sanders. Thank you." He held out his hand.
          "I know who you are. I'm a man of God, but I'm sorry. I can't shake your hand. Don't you understand why these boys are angry? A lot of people are angry and hurt by what you are doing."
          "It's part of our history. There's more to --"
          The pastor interrupted, "Part of a shameful history. No sir. You should be ashamed of what your family stood for, not honoring it."
          The minister turned and walked away.
          ***
          Weeks later, Clay sat in his den sipping bourbon after dinner. He clicked the TV remote, and a news channel from the state capital city came on. The woman reporter was standing in front of the courthouse in Willow Creek.
          He met her two days ago; she knocked on his front door and asked for an interview. Clay said no and tried to be polite as he closed the door. They had the camera on, and she wouldn't stop jabbering.
          He leaned back in his seat and took a long sip of the bourbon as he listened to her. "Lindsay Taylor here in Willow Creek, in the rural backroads of our state. A controversy is brewing in this small town, not far from where some of the first shots of the Civil War were fired. The state police have brought in reinforcements to supplement the local sheriff's office."
          She kept talking as scenes of the plantation house were shown on the TV. "Willow Plantation has stood on this spot since 1839, owned by generations of the Sanders Family. Built by slave labor and operated as a slave plantation until the end of the Civil War. Then it became a sharecropper farm."
          Her voice continued as images of KKK rallies and activities were shown, "It served as an informal headquarters for the Klu Klux Klan in this county. A prominent leader of the state Klan, Clayton J. Sanders, lived here until it was abandoned in 1938, during the Great Depression."
          She continued, "The plantation has been fully restored by the grandson and namesake of Clay--"
          He clicked the remote and the TV went dark; he poured another three fingers of bourbon.
          ***
          Clay woke up well before sunrise the next morning. The day had finally come. He finished restoring the plantation house two days earlier, transforming the four-thousand-square-foot space into what it looked like in 1839, except for the addition of electric lights and modern plumbing. A lifelong goal he decided on when his father died while Clay was in high school. The house had been abandoned for decades when it became his property on his father's death.
          He was petrified by what he was going to do next, now that it was done. He was nervous about what he had put into motion as he sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee.
          You can't do this. He didn't like to speak in front of a crowd. In a few hours, he was going to stand on the courthouse steps at a press conference organized by this lawyer from the city. He had never given a public speech.
          He cooked breakfast but couldn't bring himself to eat it. He put it into the refrigerator and headed for the bathroom for a shower and shave. He sighed as he got dressed in his only suit. People don't want to hear your reasons.
          Lester showed up at the front door just as Clay was getting ready to leave. "Lester, what are you doing here?"
          "I'm going to give you a ride into town. I'll be there with you for moral support."
          "You don't --"
          Lester didn't let him finish, "You've been a good neighbor and a good friend. Maybe I don't agree with you. But I can stand there for you."
          Lester mumbled as he parked the car near the courthouse, "There must be two hundred people here."
          Clay gasped as he took in the scene.
          There were two television vans, and a dozen or so state police officers were keeping the crowd under control. The crowd was divided into three groupings, with the police separating them. The largest group in the middle was generally quiet, and about evenly mixed white and black.
          On the left side was a vocal group, mostly black, shouting and waving signs. On the right side was a smaller group, all white. They were shouting and waving Confederate flags.
          Clay nearly tripped as he followed the lawyer up the stairs to the microphone. He clutched his index cards in his hands, and his heart pounded in his chest as the lawyer introduced him.
          People screamed angrily and others in encouragement, and then things calmed down as others shouted for quiet.
          He focused on the index cards and was afraid to look up as he got started. "I started restoring Willow Plantation more than thirty years ago. I never told anyone what I was doing or why I was doing it. Except for one person who was very close to me. Word got around about what I was up to, and people began to ask questions. Mostly angry questions about why I would bring this place back to life. Why honor a place some would call evil?"
          He paused as he shuffled to the next card. "I did it so that we do not forget our history." He took a deep breath, "A horrible heritage of enslavement, bigotry, and hate that people should not forget. The State Historical Association has agreed to help me turn it into a museum to teach future generations."
          The crowd was completely silent as Clay looked up from his note cards. He shrugged, "Thanks for listening."
          Then a few people shouted, "Traitor. Turncoat." He looked over and saw the angry glare of Harold Moore.
          Lester came up the stairs and patted Clay on the shoulder. "We all assumed something different. Even me." He paused, "Sorry."
          "I knew what people thought. I knew it would get their attention."
          The Baptist minister walked up and held out his hand. "I'm sorry and embarrassed. This is a good thing you have done. You should have asked for help with the place."
          Clay shook his hand. "I felt I had to do it alone. A sort of penance for my family's heritage."






Word Count: 1980
Prompt: Write a story about a character with a lifelong goal.