To compound Gideon’s misery, she had him chauffeur-driven to the plant every evening. The spectacle of this butterball Fauntleroy emerging from a black Lincoln caused sniggers among his co-workers, even outright hooting. Gideon was mortified but determined to show that he had some steel inside, along with the blubber.
Every morning before setting off in the Lincoln, he saturated a handkerchief with cologne (Eau de Joie). He would hold it to his assaulted nostrils when the stench of the mill overwhelmed him. This occasioned louder hooting among his colleagues, and the nickname “Rose of Coosoomahatchie.”
Gideon soldiered on bravely like a forlorn character in an Edwin Arlington Robinson poem. He learned quickly and soon worked his way up to assistant night foreman. Then, some years later, came the incident that became known ever after as “the incident.”
Cassiopeia, a traditional southern lady of a certain era, enjoyed being taken on Sunday afternoon drives. This chauffeuring duty fell to her young son, Gideon, now seventeen. After Sunday dinner (lunch, in the North), the two of them would drive off in Cassiopeia’s 1955 Cadillac Eldorado convertible with red leather upholstery, she in the back, holding her parasol in white-gloved hands, waving in a matriarchal fashion at the farmers and workers of the estate. These drives traditionally culminated at a promontory high above the Coosoomahatchie that looked out on a spectacular view of the Payne timberlands.
Gideon’s account, sobbed out to Payne County sheriff Jubiliah Stipps, was as follows. He parked the Cadillac, as usual, on the sandy bluff, set the parking brake, and got out of the car in order to answer an urgent call of nature. While doing this, he said that he heard “an awful sound.” He turned and saw the car rolling forward toward the edge of the cliff with a wide-eyed, shrieking Cassiopeia in the back. He ran (“with all my lungs, I ran”) to intercept the car but was unable to reach the vehicle in time. It rolled off the bluff and came to a crunchy end three hundred feet below. Gideon’s imitation of the sound of the Cadillac landing was said by all who heard it to be a masterpiece of onomatopoeia.
The only question remaining was-was he telling the truth?
The inquest was inconclusive but left open the possibility, as it was quietly put, of “mischief.” The evidence, such as it was, was inconclusive. The district attorney declined to prosecute. No one wanted a scandal. His unconvincing explanation was accepted-with a collective rolling of eyes-and the matter was closed.
In fact, it was anything but “closed.” Cassiopeia may not have been a popular person in Payne County, and her cruelty to Gideon was well-known. That said, matricide was “not done” in fine families in the South. Perhaps in the North, but not here.
A year later and now legally an adult, Gideon left his ancestral home, some said with hardly a look back over his shoulder. He sold his shares in Payne Enterprises, which made him relatively wealthy. He enrolled in a theological seminary, where he excelled in homiletics. He concentrated his ministry among the elderly. (Guilt, they said back home.) In the process, he came to know the owners of a home for the elderly outside Memphis. It was failing financially. He took an interest, bought it, and, displaying a genetic ability for business, turned it around and made it profitable. He bought a few more homes, turned those around. By the time he was in his mid-thirties, he owned a majority share in Elderheaven Corporation, which owned or operated nearly a hundred homes for the elderly throughout the country. Its motto was: “The next best thing to heaven.” Back in Payne County, heads were shaking, but they had to admit that this was penitence on a grand-and profitable-scale.
Gideon’s ministry expanded with his business. He became a defender of life not only for the elderly, but for the unborn. Invited to speak at a pro-life rally on the Mall in Washington, he gave an impressive, pulpit-pounding defense that put many in mind of a younger Billy Graham or, as one newspaper put it, a “white Al Sharpton.” More invitations followed, and before long he became leader of the Protestant branch of the pro-life movement. He founded the Society for the Protection of Every Ribonucleic Molecule, SPERM. Soon it became the go-to activist pro-life vanguard. If an abortion clinic opened somewhere, SPERM was there to protest. He spoke out against stem cell research. If the family of a vent-dependent, brain-dead coma victim tried to unplug life support, SPERM was there with a court order to stop it and a howling posse of interventionist congressmen. If a state legislature debated an assisted suicide bill, Gideon himself would be there to denounce it from the steps of the statehouse. Before long, Gideon was “Mr. Life.”
Because of this and Elderheaven, he also became Mr. Rich. He was a significant personage in the nation’s capital, courted by presidents and by those who craved the presidency. Every so often, some smart-alecky pundit would allude to “the incident,” but they did it at their peril. Retaliation followed, sure and swift. Denunciations of the pundit would pour forth from pulpits all over the land. Most punitively of all, advertising would be pulled from the offending newspaper or radio or website. All of which made Cass’s remark on Greet the Press no mere taunt, but a formal declaration of war.
“Why didn’t you just pull a knife and stab him in the neck?” Terry said, shaking his head. “Where’d you learn your debating style? From watching World Wrestling Federation Friday Night Smackdown?”
“Whose side are you on?” Cass said. “He called me ‘demonic.’”
“He calls everyone that.”
“Well, I’m not going to take that from some Mr. Chubby Ducketts southern-fried preacher who drove his mother off a cliff. Why should I kowtow to that asshole?”
“Cass-Supreme Court nominees kowtow to ‘that asshole.’ Powerful corporations kowtow to ‘that asshole.’ Corporations, by the way, that we seek to become clients of. Presidents kowtow to-”
“I’m not running for president. Or the Supreme Court. Whatever. We got his attention.”
“Oh,” Terry snorted, “yeah, I’d say we definitely accomplished that. You’re probably now numero uno on Gideon Payne’s shit list.”
“Bring it on.”
“Please don’t say that. It’s such bad karma. God might be listening.”
“If Gideon Payne is God’s instrument on earth, I volunteer for the next manned mission to Mars.”
The phone rang. It was the junior senator from the great state of Massachusetts, Randolph K. Jepperson.
“I’m calling to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“I asked you to kick that sanctimonious bag of helium in the balls. And you ripped them right off. Bra-va.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Cass said a bit hotly. “He called me ‘demonic.’”
“Oh, heavens, he calls everyone that. Anyhow, you were brilliant. Brilliant. I love you. Marry me. Now, I am not without news myself. While you were administering bastinadoes to the Reverend Payne, I was working feverishly to make our little ‘Modest Proposal’ the law of the land. I presented the idea of co-sponsoring the Voluntary Transitioning bill to the distinguished junior senator from Oregon, Ron Fundermunk. At first the blood drained from his face. I thought he might faint. Then I explained that it’s a meta-political device. A proxy, as it were, a philosophical tool to spark spirited debate on the issue, sure in time to lead to reform of a less, shall we say, draconian kind. Sure enough, the color returned to his face. He gets it! Those Oregonians. I love them. They’re so ahead of the curve. He’s an educated fellow. He took philosophy in college. It’s not going to alarm his constituents. He represents a state that’s dying to commit suicide. He knows a brave new world when he sees one. So, Little Miss Sunshine, the bottom line is that I am calling to inform you that I have a co-sponsor for our bill.”