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EIGHT YEARS LATER
Bernard turned seventeen the month he was released from the Orleans Parish jail after having been sentenced for criminal mischief in the fourth degree. With time served he’d done an additional three months, and fined $500. He apologized. Told the judge he’d discovered God, and his feet were on the path of righteousness.
Bérénice turned thirteen the month Jessup sent her back to Virgil declaring he and the missus had literally beaten the Devil out of her.
Long bouts of heavy drinking had taken its toll on Virgil and his farm. Wild Joe Pye weed had spread across the land, and stood at least five feet tall. Observing his property through an upstairs window it dawned on him that he should’ve stayed at his house in the city, and kept his job at the water company. But when old age pushed his parents to the grave, and the family lawyer told him he’d inherited the mortgage-free farm Jessup didn’t want, he was eager to move.
Now all he wanted to do was to sell the place and get out from under it.
On a cool December morn, one day after Bérénice was back together again with her brother, Virgil summoned them outside the house. Told them their mama was a no-good selfish whore who had an affair with a salesman. He showed them her final resting place.
Virgil awoke late at night to the hum of machinery. He went to the back yard. Followed the noise across the dry, rotted field where eggplants no longer provided an income.
When he reached the pond a sudden flash of light blurred his vision.
“What in the hell’s going on?” He shielded his eyes from the brightness, bobbed his head behind his open hand determined to know who was sitting in the driver’s seat. “What’re you doing? Haul your damn ass down from there.”
The monotone sound of chanting got to him just before he was struck deaf and blind. A single gunshot to his forehead, he fell backward into the dirty water, his arms spread-out like Jeebus Christ on the cross.
The chug and churn of a small backhoe lumbering back and forth sent unknown critters skittering into the darkness. Scoop after scoop of mud was lifted and dumped until nothing remained of Virgil Wentzel or the shallow edge of a scummy pond.