Marjorie's Story

I slid down to the floor and on my knees raised my hands clasped in prayer and a tear stained face to beg. "Malcolm please, please, I beg you, forgive me. I beg God to have mercy on me. On us!"

This seemed to have infuriated Malcolm to no end. He leaped up out of his chair with a incomprehensible barrage of curses and insults. Grabbing me by my arms leaving painful bruises, shaking me violently, then suddenly casting me...His wife! Aside in contempt.

Uttering incomprehensible curses and obscenities, he marched away to his room and slammed the door behind him.

I laid sobbing on the floor where he had thrown me for at least five or ten minutes before I slowly crawled over to the couch and pulled myself up onto it. There I laid until exhausted shock pulled me into a fitful sleep of nightmares.

Sometime before dawn I awaken to hear him crashing around the kitchen, muttering garbled imprecations. I cowered, fearing he would come pour his wrath on me again but he ignored me and slammed his way back to his room.

*************

It was about five am when thirst and hunger drove me to enter the kitchen to drink some water and prepare a tasteless sandwich, when I noticed a smell.

With all the barely contained hysteria I was going through, still I was puzzled by the smell. After choking down half of the sandwich with another glass of water, I began to snivel again so I grabbed a towel and blew my nose. That is when the strange smell got stronger, I followed it to the kitchen trash can and looked in and there was an open but empty, bottle of whiskey.

I could not comprehend where that had come from. It was so alien, so sudden a shock on top of an abundance of shocks, that I just stood there staring down at it, like it was a corpse.

Still I did not, I could not! Admit the obvious, still I refused to accuse Malcolm of consuming alcohol. My husband, the minister, the preacher of abstention and temperance. I remember all those times during services and revivals when the Reverend Meade, my Malcolm, would get up and in a frenzy of the Holy Spirit, thunder against the corruptions of demon rum, against the evils of strong spirits.

A sudden cackle of laughter galvanized me like an electric shock. I jumped an inch and had to grab onto the counter top to keep from falling at the overwhelming pain of my straining stitches.

It was Malcolm wildly glaring at me and mocking me with ta miasma of whiskey fumes. He entered the kitchen and shoved against me with his elbow while in his other hand was waving another empty bottle.

My husband was drunk! I sobbed a prayer to God to save him.

Malcolm's distorted face leered at me as the fumes of his breath choked me. "Well, if it is not the mother of my sons!"

"For God's sake Malcolm, control yourself!"

"Don't you dare! Call on the name of the Lord. You tramp, you harlot, you murderer of my children!"

I cowered back fearful as he raised his hand and waived the empty glass bottle in my face. " I deserve the best women and all I get is an abortive failure. Don't you dare call on the mercy of God in my presence."

I tried to escape the kitchen but he cruelly shoved me back against the counter. The edge digging painfully against my sore kidneys. Even drunk he was stronger then me.

With a look of spiteful triumph he realized that he had me pinned. He waved the whiskey bottle again in my face, terrifying me that he was about to hit me with it. As I cringed in fear, he continued his verbal attack.

"You drove me to this. You ruined my life and murdered my sons. You did it, you are the cause of all my misery all these years. All you bitches! My mother and Hattie and Lauren. And Marjorie, you are the worst of the female albatrosses around my neck!

All of you trying to ruin me with that sewer pit between your legs. How can a man be a man when he is surrounded by the enticements of evil women? Baby killing jezebels and whores and witches. The Bible warns us, you women will entice us into hellfire and eternal damnation with your lustful ways."

He went on like this for a couple of more minutes until he seemed to run down and pulled away from me. Turning, he tossed the empty bottle into the trash can. With a crash both bottles shattered. He disappeared back to his room with another door slam.

I stood there on shaky knees, barely keeping myself upright, as I sobbed out my grief.

That is when I heard the front door open and Anne's voice call out a good morning. I must have made a sound, a faint mewl for help. With a puzzled look on her face, she peered around the corner and then rushing to my side, in a horrified voice demanding. "Whats happened to you? What is wrong? Where is Malcolm? What is that smell?"

I shakily pointed to the trash. Peering down, incredulous she asked, "Are those whiskey bottles?"

I suddenly shivered and put my arms around myself. Anne noticed the hand-prints mottling my bare arms. "Are those bruises on your arms? Did Malcolm do that to you?"

I turned away in the shame of my failures as his wife and started to cry harder. A steely resolve crossed her face and my younger sister dictated, "We are leaving right now. Poppa will know what to do."

I took nothing as I fled. It is a blank void what occurred from that awful scene in the kitchen and Anne driving me in Aunt Ruth's car, pulling up to my parent's home.

Father was about to leave for work when Anne half-carried me in. I remember the shock on his face as Anne and I tried to explain why I had run away from my husband. Surprisingly it was Aunt Ruth who cut to the chase. "I've always suspected that man was hiding something. Boozehound indeed!"

"Oh Merciful Jesus! Please! That is my Malcolm." I sobbed.

With the implacable certainty of experience, Aunt Ruth declared "Sugar, you have to face the reality that Malcolm is a drunkard. The liquor rules his passions but you mustn't let it drag you down with it."

Daddy interjected in a stiff tone, "Ruth, you should not judge him like that. We must pray that the Good Lord, Jesus Christ, can save his soul from that foul poison."

With a world-weary shake of her head, Ruth left us for the back of the house, leaving behind a faint trail of words, "Prayer will help you Marjorie. Until Malcolm gets right with the Lord, he will never escape the clutches of the devil. If he ever chooses to."

We were all sunken into silent despair, until down on our knees. we spent the next few minutes in fervent prayer. I was begging the Lord to save Malcolm from the liquor and salvage our marriage as sanctified in Church before God and Man.

Anne put me in her bed and I fell into a restless sleep of bad dreams. Later that afternoon, when I had awaken enough to sup some broth and crackers. She told me that Poppa had telephoned the Reverend McDowell and informed him of what Poppa knew about the fight between myself and Malcolm.

Shortly thereafter, the good Reverend had gone over to our apartment to confront his junior cleric. I could not believe my ears when I was told that Malcolm had tried to attack the venerable pastor.

Only to get knocked down and dumped into a bath of cold water. Rev. McDowell was an old-fashion stem-winder, confrontational preacher of the Church Militant. Toughened by experience in fighting against thugs and gunmen hired to protect saloons and speakeasies and bootleggers.

When it seemed that Malcolm was contrite and at least half sobered up, the Pastor went to fix him some soup. That foolhardy Malcolm took the opportunity to slip out and drive off in his car.

*************

When Reverend McDowell came to visit us that evening, he was very apologetic that he had let Malcolm escape so readily. He had called several officials to ask that the police keep an eye out for him and bring him home if they catch him driving drunk.

Two days later, I was sitting at the table in my parent's kitchen, listlessly stirring a bowl of soggy cornflakes. I thought that this would be all my stomach could take but after a couple of bites I lost all interest in eating anything at all.

Instead I just sat there silently remembering, trying to remember, the good times with my Malcolm, interjected with flashing memories of my miscarriage. I wanted to pray for strength but I was feeling very unworthy and abandoned.

I vaguely heard a car pull up out front and then a second car. The slamming of car doors. The tread of men coming up the walk, onto the porch . A moments hesitation, followed by a gentle knock on the front door.

Poppa went by the kitchen with a frown on his face as he went to answer. I could hear several men talking quietly and urgently.

Suddenly I realized, they must be here about my Malcolm. Something had happened to Malcolm! I struggled up from the table, carefully tucking my robe around me, then stepped into the hall.

There was Dr. McDowell looking past Poppa's shoulder with such an expression of sorrow and the stoney face of a State Police Officer taking his hat off and coming up behind them I made out the silver hair of Dr. Prentiss.

That's when Poppa realized I was standing behind him. He turned with a stricken look on his face and rushed to me.

Tenderly he took my hands and in a grief choked voice told me my husband was dead.

"Marjorie dear, I am sorry to have to tell you that Malcolm died yesterday, when his automobile crashed."

I can remember hearing a scream of disbelief. It probably was me. Poppa carried me back to Anne's room and deposited me in her bed as my grief poured out in wild howls.

Dr. Prentiss came in and gave me a shot, for I do not remember anything but nightmares for a couple of days, until I gradually woke up in a hospital bed.

And again, Anne was sitting beside me reading a book of Psalms. I made a noise to gain her attention. She poured me a glass of water and held it for me to my lips as her other hand gently lifted my head. I took a couple of sips, stopped when I choked.

She pressed the buzzer for the nurse who came in quickly, checked my pulse and asked me how I was feeling. I tried to respond but I felt like I had been struck dumb.

What does that mean? "How do I feel?"

I felt like I was floating in a warm ocean without any land in sight. Without any hope of salvation.

Between the physical damage to my body from losing our child and the psychological traumas of the last month, Dr. Prentiss insisted on keeping me sedated and under observation at the hospital for an entire week.

Later, I would learn the known details of how Malcolm had perished. He had driven to a liquor store a few miles east across the state line. On the way back home, where the highway veers towards Youngstown at the bridge crossing the river. Recklessly driving at too high a speed, Malcolm's weaving vehicle collided with the concrete abutment.

The investigating officers believe that he was sampling one of his purchases. They had found a bottle of whiskey with its top off, shattered among his feet and the pedals under the steering wheel.

The other bottles, scattered from a box on the floor behind the driver's seat, were also smashed but the lids were still screwed on. All that alcohol, combined with the burning gasoline, torched the automobile and incinerated the young Rev. Malcolm Meade.

*************

Some how I made it through the following week. I am not sure if it was the shock of my husbands death or the medicine they were giving me to enable me to sleep. I felt personally numb, as though I was the cadaver.

You know, we go through life believing we have just experienced the worst that life can throw at us. And then, without warning, we are confronted with an even more horrendous situation for which we are never prepared.

In October of '57, after the closed-casket funeral, at the gravesite. At the graveside!

Malcolm's coffin had been lowered into the ground just minutes ago. The Rev. Dr. Smithson had only concluded the services a minute before.

We all had our heads bowed in final silent prayer for the soul of Malcolm Meade. Though it seems not all of us were as engaged in the solemnity of this sad occasion. The half-dozen of Malcolm's blood relatives, the Meade's who had deigned to attend this final rite for one of their own. In a group, they approached and surrounded me. As the rest of us prayed.

When I noted their approach, I was fully expecting a reconciliation. I was preemptively grateful that they would try to console me, the widow of their son. However that was not to be. They were demanding that I give them half of my husband's insurance money.

I was so shocked at this outrageous demand and their pugnacious attitudes, I staggered back in fear, unable to respond. As his family proceeded to make such a scene!

Without any hesitation, my father determinedly shoved his way in between me and those people. Drew me out of their encirclement and passed me to Mrs. McDowell and my sister Anne and some of other women. Who bravely surrounded me in a collective protective embrace.

I could hear Poppa angrily denying that there was any insurance. That this modest funeral was being paid for by the Elk's Chapter, Malcolm had belonged to and donations from his parishioners.

Dr. McDowell rushed to the confrontation. At first to keep my father and Mr. Meade, Malcolm's father, from coming to blows. When it became clear to our Pastor that the Meade's were threatening me for an insurance policy that never existed. The Good Reverend actually lost his temper.

Who would of believed that? I never would have but I was there, Even surrounded by my petticoat protection, moving away from the quarrel I could hear that Man of God's bellow of outrage tearing into that pack of jackals.

With a lion's roar he ripped into the Meades. "It isn't as if you people have contributed a plug nickel to your own son's funeral expenses. You have no right to demand anything! Now have the decency to leave quietly before I personally throw you out!"

In the milling crowd, there could be heard muttering imprecations against the Meades. Threatening enough to convince that family of scrooges to turn tail and flee. Everyone agreed that their behavior had been boorish and crass. No one could believe that they would act so insulting to me, the grieving widow.

The Meade's shame and fear had caused them to forget the other demand they wanted to make. That I return the heirloom ring that Malcolm had received of his grandmother's bequest.

I had assumed from all the fuss they had made originally, of it leaving their grasp, that it had to be valuable but I had never even thought to have it appraised.

*************

*************

Chapter November, 1957

*************

A couple of weeks later, I received a letter from a lawyer for the Meade family, demanding that I return the ring to them. Threatening to take me to court in an action for recovery.

I thought Poppa was going to blow a gasket when he took the demanding note from my nerveless hand and read it.

"Those people are unbelievable! Marjorie. Sweetie. You do not need to concern yourself with such matters. If any more letters arrive for you from some one you do not know, please let me see them first."

I nodded dumbfounded, then fearfully whispered.

"Oh Poppa, what are we to do? We cannot afford a lawyer."

I suddenly wrenched at the offending ring with my other hand, trying to twist it off my finger with a burst of self-inflicted pain. "Take it! Send it back to them before they cause us more grief."

He put out a restraining hand and gently said. "Dear girl, their threats to sue us do not concern me. I will go to see Dr.McDowell and he will give us good advice on the proper response

Meanwhile, you need to continue to rest and recuperate. Take the time to consider if you would truly want to return this symbol of your sanctified bond with Malcolm. And pray for Divine guidance that you may be assured what is the right thing to do."

Aunt Ruth had been hanging back listening, she rushed to me and as she guided me to sit at our dining table while she went to get me a glass of iced tea. She looked back over her shoulder and angrily exclaimed, "Albert, you aughta punch 'em in their blue-blooded noses! Bunch of lousy, sanctimonious hypocrites!"

The next evening, Poppa told us that he had taken the threatening letter to our Minister. Who in turned called in a favor from an attorney who specialized in family law and who would help us for gratis.

Judge Larson is a noted attorney and had served a number of terms as a lower-court judge. He would tell us that I did not have to return the ring to the Meades.

It was clearly mine by law and custom and church regulations. Judge Larson got off a scathing letter denouncing the Meade family for their blatant attempt at extortion. The two law offices exchanged very frosty notes declaring our conflicting claims.

Finally, after much self-introspection and prayer. I had decided that I did not wish to retain the ring. As such selfishness on my part, would poison any future attempt at reconciliation with the Meade family.

Malcolm had been my beloved husband before the devil's poison had destroyed him. But he had also been their son and brother.

I could not, in good conscience, leave such a bitter split over this worldly item. Yes, it tugged at my heart to give up that memento of our love but it was not an heirloom of my family.

My plain gold wedding band was what I truly cherished as the symbol of the bonding in marriage between Malcolm and I.

Years later, when I was contemplating a new marriage. It was time for me to move on with my future and finally close the door to my past. I gave the gold ring to a charitable group that provides assistance to impoverished young couples to assist them with wedding dresses and such items as a wedding rings if needed.

*************

When my father informed Judge Larson, that I had decided to give back the heirloom ring, our attorney swung onto another tack.

His office had sent a request for a copy of Malcolm's grandmother's will and last testament.

After carefully reading the codicil describing the ring, he compared that description with some old photographs his associates had obtained of the grandmother's wedding and during her lifetime.

Then he had me go with him and Poppa to a jewelry store. Where a very nice old Jew carefully worked the ring off my finger with a little bit of oil and a lot of friendly patience.

He commented as he worked it free. "A cheap 10 karat gold band/ A half-size too small for you, young lady. It would have caused serious problems for you if you had continued to wear it too small for your finger."

As he held it up to his monocle, to peer at the diamonds.he snorted in disbelief. "All this drama! For this dreck! The center diamond is of an inferior grade. About two carats and surrounded by a half-dozen low grade, yellow-blemished diamond chips. About another half carat total."

He shook his balding, grey-tonsured head in disgust, took a moment to juggle it in his palm as he deliberated it's market value.

"Stores that deal in items of this low quality would retail it for three, perhaps four hundred dollars. And be making a very good profit! Mostly likely it would only sell discounted down to two hundred dollars. And still make a modest profit."

Judge Larson sagely nodded and in a cynical tone replied. "I suspected as much. People will secretly replace valuable jewels with cheap imitations or outright fakes."

The old Jew piped in with, "Shameful! All too often, I have seen this, Your Honor. Young lady I am sorry but this world will abuse any honest person's trust. I would guess that they had hocked the original ring and bought this as a cheap replacement."

As the jeweler handed the ring to Poppa. My father asked in a shocked tone. "You mean Malcolm's parents had cheated their own son!?"