Tennessee Williams Festival Entry

This was most likely my only chance to enter the Tennessee Williams Festival Contest for Short Stories, as once you are published in fiction you are no longer eligible. I’m hoping my book is published before October 2021. However, I really enjoyed the research that came along with this story.

Empty Pillars

The old black man opened the newspaper with the full intention of reading every page, as he always had. He studied the color photograph that polluted the first page. A monster of a crane, uncomfortably placed in Lee Circle, towered over the statue of stoic General Robert E. Lee, a landmark that had withstood time and all the elements New Orleans’ volatile weather had handed it. The bronze icon had held post since 1884, surrounded by lush foliage and benches from where the fleetingly could watch autos race with streetcars to make their turns out of the busy roundabout. Standing proud and straight as a sundial, the statue marked the passing of time with its shadow.

“He never turned his back on the North.” He remembered his father offering the history lesson as they walked up the small park’s stairs to the monument’s base, his huck-a-buck dripping ice-cold red juice over his tiny fingers. His father frequently repeated little tidbits of knowledge as they traveled by streetcar through the city on Sunday family trips: “There he is, General Lee, never turned his back on the North.” The reiteration would eventually prod his young brain into learning more.

At the time he had been too young to understand the war, the statue, Confederate beliefs, yet he still recognized there was a difference between whites and blacks. Whites looked at him and reacted in one of two ways: a quick nod to clarify that he understood his place, or a half smile addressing him as a sort of novelty. “Look at you.” A woman with milky white skin and pale pink cheeks pointed at him with a long white-gloved finger. Holding his mother’s safe hand on the way to church, he felt the intrusion of the stranger’s attention. “All dressed up like a little man.” The words were complimentary, but his mother’s smile back to the woman was only cordial. Not the smile he saw when she greeted their neighbor Miss Maggie, who often delivered homemade pies on Sunday afternoons. Miss Maggie would pick him up and twirl him around until he laughed uncontrollably. “Look at you, dressed up like a little man.” She spoke the same words, but they meant something different.

 When he was a few years older, on his way to the library, the streetcar shook as it exited the roundabout, past the Lee statue and onto St. Charles. The hot wind blew through the open windows, whisking through the blonde locks of a girl sitting several rows ahead of him. The scent of sweet flowers had floated through the car with the wind. It was the first time he had been captivated by a girl.

These memories had long lain dormant in his mind, but this headline had pulled the rug out from underneath him. “Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee Statue Removal Continues Controversy in New Orleans.” He reached for his coffee cup, picking it up and putting it down  on his dark wooden desk twice before finally taking a swallow of the lukewarm beverage and leaning back in his caramel-colored leather chair, eyes sweeping his study. He fixed his gaze on the small objects scattered about his otherwise neat desk that leant some personality to the cozy room—a bronze compass secured in a polished wooden box. A small clock, also bronze, that sounded a dull comforting tick that all but disappeared into the atmosphere, unless perhaps you were alone in the room on a silent morning. A precise stack of papers, still blank, held down with an elegant pen that seemed to wait in anticipation of what it might be used to jot on the blank canvas. Books stacked orderly in preparation for perusal. He crossed his feet, dressed in leather shoes too formal for lounging at home, and sighed. Haven’t we come further by now?

The front door of the colonial home, just off Esplanade Avenue, slammed shut. The iron umbrella stand, which had always been a little lopsided, rattled before settling itself, and the reverberation reached his office. His granddaughter had returned. He leaned his elbows on the table as he waited for her entrance.  His wife and their live-in helper, Margaret, looked forward to Angela’s visits.  Margaret and his wife, Hazel, spent many a night at the kitchen table discussing their granddaughter’s various exploits as he sat solving the world’s problems from his overstuffed leather chair, a whisky on ice his confidant.

Hazel and Margaret sat at the kitchen table almost nightly, sipping wine, playing gin rummy or that scrabble game they liked until their eyes hung heavy. He would eavesdrop while scooping French vanilla ice cream into a small bowl on a brief break from studying the economic development in postwar Europe or the Ursuline’s influence in early 1800s New Orleans. He would wait the few seconds it took to soften his dessert in the microwave, trying not to be judgmental of Hazel’s sometimes made-up scrabble words—“reconjuncted,” “overintolerability,” “Neposystem”—that brought deep sighs from Margaret who kept the dictionary busy.

Angela had been nicknamed Puddin before she’d even opened her eyes, and the nickname had stuck even now that she was twenty. A poinsettia in each arm, she swayed through the thick, molded dark wood door frame New Orleans houses had become famous for. “Pawpaw, Mr. Matassa asked me to tell you he got in a bottle of the Buffalo Bourbon you asked for.” She stopped and took notice of her grandfather’s agitated state. His face was devoid of the jovial smile and deep warm laugh that always greeted her, a welcome that had become his trademark.

Angela heard first the appeal in her mother’s voice —“They’re not getting any younger”—and soon the stern tone that used to call her to the table for supper—“They’re your grandparents, Angela.” Her mother didn’t realize that it wasn’t that she didn’t want to go visit, but she was focused on her future now. She had been away from the sweet smell of New Orleans jasmine, the dense humid miserable summers, and the endless second lines and festive parades for the best of three years, at school in Georgetown. It wasn’t her fault her parents found Florida more suitable for her father’s endless golf obsession. Since she and her parents had left New Orleans, she had only traveled back to the city once, a quick weekend to break up with Derik, her high school sweetheart—face-to-face, she owed him that. Taking advantage of a paid internship—pushing papers, answering phones, and running errands at the Taylor, Randolph, and Quest Law firm in downtown D.C.—seemed a better use of her free time.

As she carefully assessed her grandfather’s expression, a melody of female voices rang sweet from the kitchen. It was a mixture of giggles and rhetoric that created a comforting music that to Angela meant home. Her parents had arrived just one day earlier, and she knew her mother would spend most of her time in the kitchen with Grandma, while Dad golfed with old frat buddies at City Park. The vanilla from the pralines filled the air and started to pull her past Pawpaw Simms to deliver the requested poinsettias, a long holiday family tradition for the Christmas table, but she turned back. She had spent her youngest years bopping up and down on Pawpaw’s knee on weekly visits, her middle years enjoying his laugh and those silver dollars and stamps he gifted on holidays, and her schoolgirl days answering questions about her grades and plans for college. She had never seen him so serious before, or if she had, she hadn’t thought to inquire further.

Pawpaw was always tucked away in his office going over documents in folders from his past, thick with old photos and handwritten notes. He pulled hardback books with weary spines down from the shelf and devoured their contents while light jazz played in the background through ancient speakers that she was certain he had purchased when they were brand new. His warm laugh set the tone at dinner, and he was usually the one asking questions, rarely sharing much of himself. Pawpaw seemed to find pleasure in listening to his family talk over each other, fighting for a turn in the limelight. Often, his laugh returned at the banter that bounced across the table before he washed it down with his good wine. Angela thought she knew him well, but she stood there in a strange limbo, watching her Pawpaw with what appeared to be wet eyes behind his readers. She was fixated on the man she now realized she only knew a little, or maybe not at all.

Angela set the plants down on the dark green-and-gold holiday runner that flowed off both sides of the coffee table and had been ironed to perfection, no doubt by Miss Margaret. Between Grandma and Miss Margaret, no knickknack collected dust, no tablecloth had a crease, and no windowpane’s wavy glass was streaked. The women were at war with the infiltration of everyday household dirt, and they continued to lead the battle. “Pawpaw, you all right?”

The question took the old man by surprise. He removed the small, square reading glasses from his face and gave his eyes a good but brief wipe. As Pawpaw folded his paper to toss it on the ottoman, the familiar rustle of the pages reminded her of the days when the sound of her father rustling the paper in the kitchen was a clue that she had time to close her eyes and snuggle into her bed for a spell. He laid his spectacles on the paper and aimed an agreeable smile at her, with a hint of the famous laugh, this time somewhat apologetic.

Puddin was dressed in her usual conservative style, black jeans and a thick, ribbed gray turtleneck, with her jet-black hair back in a tight French roll. She looked sophisticated, yet still innocent, the little girl who used to tug on his sweater for attention. “Funny you ask,” he said, patting the soft leather chair next to him in invitation. “Sit down, why don’t you?”

Angela took the seat, realizing for the first time that she had never had a real conversation with Pawpaw Simms. She always stood up straight as she answered questions about her schoolwork, waiting for his laugh before running off, out of his way. “Puddin, I’ll be eighty-eight next month.” He shook his head, seeming to recall all eighty-eight of those years in that moment. “Now, you’ve got to know I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime. I’ve been to war, been through depressions and recessions, and watched the world change. From segregation to desegregation, to the social farce we have going on now with a leadership that’s taking us steps backward.” He nodded. “Make America great again—great for who?” He grinned at Puddin, who scooted to the back of her seat, realizing that her simple pry had led to what could become lengthy discourse.

“With all I’ve witnessed,” he continued, his voice a little deeper. “I’ve never been so afraid for our future. People are standing for beliefs without understanding what they’re standing for.” He hit the paper with an open hand. “That’s the problem we face today. So many people eager to latch on to a little piece of information without thinking for themselves. Learning the topic in and out, the pros and cons, where the issue is rooted and most importantly, what it means to our future.”

Her grandfather picked up the paper. “Have you seen this?” he asked, displaying the photograph of General E. Lee, arms folded, facing defiantly north.

“Of course,” she said, somewhat stoically. “It’s about time those statues come down.”

Pawpaw paused only briefly before shaking his head slowly left to right, tilted to the side. The look Angela’s mother had often given her when she had exaggerated her progress with household chores or homework. His feet made a statement as they hit the floor firmly in front of him as he pushed the ottoman aside and moved forward to the edge of his chair. “Puddin, do you know what those statues stand for?” Her forehead grew an inquisitive wrinkle. Was he seriously about to defend the statues?

With his finger in the air, he began a lecture. “Do you understand Robert E. Lee was a man of integrity? The man was tormented and conflicted with the ways of war. He never put down his memoirs, but in a letter he wrote to his wife, he made his position clear.” Pawpaw stood and crossed the room to his puzzle of books on the overstuffed shelves. “I have it here somewhere. You shouldn’t take my word for it, you understand.”

While he shuffled through a second layer on the shelf furthest to the left, next to a freshly polished bronze duck bookend, he went on about Robert E. Lee. “He was a man in favor of the Union. It was when he feared his home state Virginia was in great danger that he found himself forced to switch sides.” Pawpaw’s back was turned so she could admire him without detection. He had kept himself fit and his mind sharp from endless study. “Here it is.” He produced a thick folder, tied with a string, that as he unraveled it brought anticipation of documents rich with the country’s secrets. He pulled out a pamphlet, its pages browned with age. He held it open as he leafed through the small booklet, and she could see its title read Southern Historical Society. “Here it is, you see.” He handed Puddin the proof and watched as she studied the page.

The document smelled of old paper, and its worn pages fell softly to either side of her hands as she held it gingerly, so as not to harm the document. She read the introduction to the letter the general had penned privately to his wife and then his personal beliefs, now copied for the world to spy…

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy. This influence though slow, is sure. The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years, to Convert but a small part of the human race, & even among Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a Single day. Although the Abolitionist must know this, & must See that he has neither the right or power of operating except by moral means & suasion, & if he means well to the slave, he must not Create angry feelings in the Master; that although he may not approve the mode which it pleases Providence to accomplish its purposes, the result will nevertheless be the same; that the reasons he gives for interference in what he has no Concern, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbors when we disapprove their Conduct; Still I fear he will persevere in his evil Course. Is it not strange that the descendants of those pilgrim fathers who Crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom of opinion, have always proved themselves intolerant of the Spiritual liberty of others?”

Angela continued to skim the document as Pawpaw’s rhetoric paralleled the handout’s report. Some of it explained the criticism Lee had endured, some of it, with racial undertones, praised his leadership. Some of it addressed who the man Lee was: driven, a man who looked at the big picture, with cunning skills in the chess game of war, and many of those who supported him, it appeared, did so in spite of him, as they misunderstood, or refused to accept his stance and reasons for battling the Union.

“The day is not distant when all citizens of this great Republic will unite in claiming Lee as their own, and rising from the study of his heroic life and deeds, will cast away the prejudices of forgotten strife . . .” the president of the R. E. Lee Monumental Association had added to the document.

She closed the old pages, more than pleased to be involved for the first time in matters that included Pawpaw’s old books, papers, and historical research. “Those were devastating and trying times, Puddin,” he said as he took the papers from her. “Lee, while against slavery, believed the black beast had to be tamed, for its own sake. Educated before the race could be assimilated into their civilization,” he said with weighted sarcasm. “What he failed to realize is that the white beast needed education before that race would be able to understand any kind of assimilation of our people. There are so many things wrong with what went down, but . . .” He paused and held his finger in the air once more. “I believe it was better to have a man of integrity on the opposing side.”

 Pawpaw’s words were greased with smooth praise for the man who had owned slaves himself. Puddin bit her tongue, waiting to discover her grandfather’s motivation for the conversation. More papers and books were pulled from his reservoir, and they spent almost an hour devouring information on history of Robert E. Lee.

Lee had surrendered to the Union. His home in Arlington was now a cemetery, bloodied with memories and bones. Nudged by his wife and friends, he accepted the position to head up Washington college in his home state, Virginia, not long after the war had ended. The time was 1865. He made his position clear: he would support the Constitution of the United States, and he encouraged other former confederates to join him. He saw no place for a Confederate flag to taunt memories of the haunting past. The man behind the statue that now brought great conflict to the country had made it clear he opposed erecting monuments on the battlefields where the Southern soldiers under his command had fought against the Union. His utmost desire after the war was to extinguish the blazing passions of the Civil War. “I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered,” Lee wrote to clarify his position.

“I went to the protest to take the Albert Pike’s statue down in D.C.,” Angela recalled. She spoke without emotion. It felt like a confession she might be judged for unfavorably. She had found a seat in the corner by a window, sipping a morning latte at her regular Starbucks in D.C., when she spotted an online article on the news feed that appeared daily on her laptop screen. Albert Pike was to be removed from the small park she frequented near Judiciary Square. “Eight D.C. elected officials have asked the National Park Service to remove a statute of a Confederate general from a parklet near Judiciary Square, saying it commemorates an ideology with no place in the nation’s capital,” the article touted.

Those who had once been celebrated as American’s forefathers were to be stripped of their presence as prejudice enforcers against the black community. How could Angela not stand by the activists? It was happening only an hour from the time she had discovered it, so she packed her computer and notes into her satchel and hurried to the Square. A feeling so freeing, so powerful overcame her as she stood by activists, black and white for equality!

The remembrance spiked her confidence. “Pawpaw, imagine statues of Hitler in Germany towering over the crowd.” She raised her right arm straight and high in front of her, a Nazi salute. “Celebrate Hitler’s contribution to the German economy but ignore the terror he inflicted on the Jewish.”

“Huh.” She had stumped him. “Interesting perspective,” he said. The idea had interrupted his momentum. He nodded and swallowed before he offered a different view. “Could such a statue be a reminder that a catastrophe such as that should never be forgotten?” Her grandfather looked into his empty cup. “Statues aren’t always meant to celebrate the subject. I suppose they can remind us of the open wounds and imperfections of our past.”

She listened as he used the example of the surreal day when New York’s Twin Towers fell to the ground. A vast park had since replaced the iconic towers that had buckled and perished on 9/11. A memorial now celebrated the lives of those lost there. Two craters had become a powerful image that had replaced the towers, rather than erecting grand new buildings whose presence would have, ironically, worked to erase the memory of the catastrophe. The void of the buildings was a brilliant reminder of the terror that screamed across the country that day and the reality of the threat of an enemy attack.

She needed time to think about Pawpaw’s challenge to her view, so Angela once again bit her lip. Think before you speak, she told herself.

“When it comes to the history of our nation,” Pawpaw said. “I believe tearing the past apart can only tear apart our future. People are fighting among each other, and they don’t understand the entire picture. That’s what’s got my goat. Only building, creating, can lead to good.” His passion was reinvigorated now. “But first you have to embrace the idea that it is our nation. We’re not visitors here. You mentioned Albert Pike. Good lord, woman.” He changed his focus and sounded almost angry now as he defended the dead white American. His lecture continued, and Angela listened, but felt sure her drive for justice could not be swayed. Pawpaw with serious attention to detail explained Albert Pike’s importance to Native Americans. Pike had negotiated treaties that under the Confederacy promised the tribes a state of their own if the Confederacy won the war. Pawpaw stood and attempted to negotiate on Pike’s behalf. “Prior to the war, as an attorney, Pike specialized in claims for Native Americans against the federal government. Now, it’s true Pike wrote a document, a forty-page document, hugely for the states within the union to stand for their own rights, suggesting that the North was forcing their mandates on the South, not in the spirit of the constitution. However, while he formed troops for the South, governing American Indians, it was for American Indians to obtain rights to at least a portion of their land. The man was always at odds with the powers that be, and he fought for the rights of others to the point of a duel. He eventually resigned from the confederacy.” Pawpaw put down his invisible gavel, about to rest his case. He nearly took a seat, but then seemed to think better of it, adjusting his final statement. The study had been transformed into a courthouse, and the men behind the statues were at trial.

 “Pike was a man who I believe was also conflicted with the way the world was evolving.” He shook his head again, realizing he hadn’t yet broached his point. A brief history of Beauregard followed. Pawpaw felt the accused man was a necessary witness to the stand. He was the first prominent Confederate general whose statue had been confiscated, now exiled to an undisclosed dark warehouse with his brethren. “It was Beauregard who eventually convinced President Davis to end the war, and when he moved back to Louisiana, the man advocated for black civil rights and black suffrage.”

Angela’s mother’s heels clicked on the hardwood floor, announcing her entrance. The sound was eerie—the clerk coming to take the prisoners away. Her festive apron, printed with large red poinsettias, was smeared with handprints of sugar and flour, a quick reminder that the holidays were the reason for the visit. “I thought I heard you in here,” she said, while picking a hair from the sleeve of Angela’s gray sweater. Mom was always picking, but she meant well, so it was okay.

Her lighthearted demeanor contrasted with the tone in the room. “You wanna come help us?” she asked as she sat on the arm of her daughter’s chair. “Grandma won’t let me stir the sugar, says she’s the only one who can keep it from crystalizing.” Then she whispered, “Truth is, hers are the darn creamiest Praw-leans, so she might have it right. But I’m on the sweet potato pies.” As her mom picked up the poinsettias, she bent at the knees, as if they would weigh a ton, and she held them in her arms in front of her poinsettia-filled apron. “Don’t these look nice!” she said. Angela had to laugh. Her mother looked like a salesperson in the French Market selling her goods. “What?” her mother responded, slightly curtsying.

“Why don’t you let her sit a spell, Patty; we’re having a discussion here,” Pawpaw said, watching Puddin for a reaction. He was pleased to be discussing the statues with his granddaughter. It may have seemed he was lecturing, but he was eager to discover her mind-set on the topic. The ideals of a young adult. She had grown up so fast. It seemed like only yesterday Patricia was drawing plans for her doll house at his desk. “Let the child be a child,” he would say. He had enjoyed watching his daughter’s young imagination as she acted out little plays for her parents after dinners on Saturday nights. “Kids are growing up too fast these days,” he’d say now to Hazel while they watched a program on television together, the commercials making him all but blush. Once Patricia traded in her Wile E. Coyote lunch box for a high school book bag, things changed, however. School came first, with endless hours of study for the SAT exam. Pawpaw had seen to it, quizzing her now and then on various topics.

Angela nodded, reassuring her mother that she wished to stay. Then came the deep warm laugh her grandfather was known for, the rumble that always started deep in his chest and soon found its way out with his upper body moving in synch. A contagious laugh that always found Angela powerless against the cheerful smile inevitably spreading across her face. This time his laugh was an acknowledgement of his pleasure in her interest in their conversation.

Pawpaw patted Angela on the knee. It had usually been brief visits in his study. Just enough to say hello. “Come play in the garden, leave your grandfather be,” her mother would say, directing her away from the room that smelt of leather and old books. She had always wanted to linger there in that important room with its framed map on the wall and globe in the corner, as if it were a place to chart a course. She wondered what meaningful things took place in that room where Pawpaw spent hour after hour behind the large desk.

“Well, I’ll get you some more coffee then?” Patricia offered. Her mother was always busy. She started in the morning singing as she made the coffee and hummed to the dinner dishes at the end of the day. She dressed for work only after cooking “the most important meal of the day.” If you weren’t at the breakfast table, you had better have had a darn good excuse. “You take a sweetener, hun?”

“Sugar, real sugar; they got some in there. We’re killing ourselves with chemicals and empty foods,” he said with stern conviction.

 “On that note, I’ll go fetch your coffee with real sugar.” Patricia escaped into the kitchen, the echo of her heels followed.

“It’s after twelve; ask Hazel to put a touch of bourbon in it,” he hollered after her and gave Puddin a quick wink.

“Pawpaw.” Angela wasted no time returning back to court. “If we ignore how those statues are being used—as monuments of suppression—we are at fault for turning the cheek. Those men were not our heroes.”

“More importantly, are the statues now the root of our problem?” He addressed the newspaper, “It says here that what the Lee statue represents is cause enough to rip it from the pillar.” He thought of the day the statue had been erected, decades before his birth.

A downpour flooded over the thousands who paraded to what would be renamed Lee Circle, the former Place du Trivoli, February 22, 1884.  The important intersection, connecting upriver with downriver neighborhoods, was full; a giant mass of umbrellas moved around the circle like scales of a monstrous beast. Only one month after Lee had passed, the R. E. Lee Monumental Association had formed. Lee’s family and friends, followers, and had-been adversaries jointly agreed that a man of his stature was to be remembered and memorialized.

Forced to recede from the storm, the masses hovered under cover as it was decided the ceremony would cease, but the commemoration would proceed forthwith. The bishop pronounced his benediction, and the speech by the president of the foundation was submitted in written form to move the process along. It was decided that the immense turnout of Lee supporters substantiated the importance for a tribute.

“But wasn’t that statue erected to provide a pillar with a shadow of prejudice to remind blacks that we are being watched—that confederates stand strong!” The words seeped through Puddin’s teeth.

“Would you fault the man for the intent of a group of ignorant supporters?” Pawpaw asked. “Lee’s daughter had made the point that her father would not be dressed in his war uniform as he would have considered it treason. Now countless white Americans stand with banners and bullhorns finding a way to apologize and show respect to the United States black community by ripping a man, who was ultimately against the Confederate scheme, from that pillar. It’s appreciated, those that stand behind equality. But is this fight the right one? Or are they on a bandwagon that will only put a wedge between us?” What would we dismantle next? he thought. Jackson Square, home of the auction block where the terror took place? Will we destroy city squares to wash away memories that had best not be forgotten?

That was the thing about New Orleans, not much had changed. You could squint your eyes and the tourists in mule-drawn buggies fogged into wealthy estate owners in their carriages, headed to Place d’Arms to bid on slaves. History lives in the rues of New Orleans, he thought, as he fidgeted and looked toward the door. “Where’s that coffee?”

“I’ll get it.” Angela didn’t hesitate. She left the leather chair and turned down the long hall lined with family pictures. She could remember running on the old hardwood after Tank, her grandparent’s spaniel, during after-school visits. She would hide from him in the bath under the stairs and reward him with a dog biscuit when his strong nose sniffed her out.

Angela swung the kitchen door open.  Her mother had just placed the coffee cups on the tray along with warm pralines, one coffee with bourbon, one without. “The natives are getting restless,” Angela said to her mother.  

Grandma was steady stirring sugar in a pan.  Margaret sat at the kitchen table folding dinner napkins into soft sculptures.  “Your grandmother won’t let me poison her pots,” Margaret said, somewhat put out.

“Go on now,” Hazel scolded.  “You all complain until you eat them.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Margaret smiled.

“What are you two on about in there?” Patricia asked her daughter as she relinquished the tray.

“The statues, coming down. What do you think about it, mom?”

“I think the energy and money would be better spent elsewhere,” she answered.

Puddin saw grandma smile at her.  Grandma seemed pleased Pawpaw had Puddin’s attention.  Angela’s thoughts were thick with controversy.  Confederate statues must come down. That had been her undoubted opinion.  Preoccupied, she turned and left the kitchen, entering the study talking. “Pawpaw, the truth is, those men fought to keep slaves. Now white supremacists flaunt those statues as pillars of their cause. If we eliminate them, that’s one less evil for these terrorists to stand by.”

 She set the tray between them soundly, to punctuate her statement. Pawpaw’s hot cup smelled slightly of the whiskey, and he savored the sip before continuing. “Let me ask you this, Puddin: Did you think about that when you passed Lee Circle throughout your life? Or was the ugliness of it brought forward by activists that like I said didn’t take the time to investigate what Robert E. Lee truly stood for?” He picked up a praline. He gestured with the hand holding the sweet to emphasize his point. “Now ask yourself, are you on the bandwagon?”

Angela, like her grandfather, had a history with the Lee statue. Mardi Gras time, Lee Circle had been the spot for their camp—fold-up chairs and Popeye’s chicken—for the Muses parade on Wednesday nights. Truth was, to her the statue had always meant Mardi Gras until now. But it was the perception of what the statue meant to racists that she felt shouldn’t be overlooked.

It was that perception in fact that disappointed and had saddened the old man. That a white man could look at it as a monument of failure in the Civil War and now an icon to taunt blacks, and a black man as a monument of suppression, rather than a united value of the history we had breached together, what we had learned from each other.

 “There is so much that needs to be done. I feel activists must choose wisely what they are acting on. It’s possible to build larger gaps by acting on destruction. What do you think the youth of today take away from statues being torn down? It’s a focus on the separation of race.”

Angela disagreed, and found that her grandfather’s serious consideration of her words had given her a confidence within herself that fueled the discussion. “Removing monuments that tarnish our equality is a natural progression to our success. I’m proud that we have agreed to remove monuments that mock our race. Let those statues become history. What’s more important than replacing the statues with monuments that will signify the perspective of the city’s people? Now, today?

“Pawpaw, I want to pass by a statue with my children one day that illustrates our growth and success. For example, a statue of the great musician Louis Armstrong. A monument to the culture that shaped New Orleans.”

He nodded, but as he spoke there was a “however” in his tone. “I think maybe you’re overlooking a little of the greatness in the men we’ve discussed. I suppose the expense of the whole thing, dismantling, not building, has me at odds at well, Puddin.” It had cut deep into city pocketbooks and, he felt, deeper into the gully of separation. Pawpaw had viewed the statues as testaments to the struggle of the past.

Angela took the first bite of her praline. It melted in her mouth and reminded her of baking sweet potatoes pies with her mother in the double shotgun in the Bywater and playing Christmas songs on her father’s untuned piano before they’d moved. “We are creating a vision for what this country will become. Pawpaw, I agree that we have to understand the issues, like you said. And I can’t deny that I had no idea of the history behind those men. Shame on me.” She meant it. Pawpaw’s lesson had been taken to heart. “But it hasn’t changed my mind that their statues are detrimental to a vision of equality. There is a time to shed the past and rebirth better icons to define who we are.”

Pawpaw grinned at his granddaughter. She wasn’t just on the bandwagon. He liked her rationale. He enjoyed listening to words with thought behind them. Icons of the men and women who contributed culture to New Orleans. That had meat to it. “Well, they’re gone now anyway.” Pawpaw sighed. “Monuments of nothing, empty pillars, stand waiting for equality to tower above the city.” His laugh returned. “Time to move on and let the young provide new vision, as you say.”

Angela reached for a second praline.  All these years she had watched Pawpaw watch her grown up, not realizing the passion he had for all those papers he pondered in his study. She stood and strolled along the wall of plaques he had collected. Man of the Year, Omega PSI PHI Fraternity—1962, Superior Service Award—1975; the awards ran from the early sixties to the 2018 award for Youth Educational Development for the Bywater Community Center. Always working to help the youth, she thought. Pawpaw was a man who walked the walk.

He watched her study his awards as he realized that once the discussion of moving the statues had begun in the city, defending had become a moot point. She was right. The statues had become symbols of separation themselves. He realized his argument at this point was like trying to fit a square block into a round hole. It was time to move on.

Puddin approached him. This time she was the one with slightly wet eyes. She reached to shake his hand, then leaned in for a hug. “Thank you, Pawpaw.” Her talk with her grandfather had left her brimming with ideas. They had learned from each other’s arguments. The grandfather whose silver dollars she cherished and had always kept locked in a keepsake box, hidden high in her closet, had now given her something of even greater value. He had taught her first and foremost to investigate “the issue,” whatever it was. She would never forget it. When Kevin Alexander, a know-it-all who had paralleled her class schedule the last three years at Georgetown, came to her next time with one of his causes, she would put him on hold for an answer and gather her facts.

The newspaper the old man had tossed in the trash was now only a reminder of a topic with a new future. Tomorrow the trash would be empty. Miss Margaret or Hazel would swoop it up to make room for forthcoming issues Pawpaw would contemplate in the important room.

The End