Ma and I stood in silence on top of the hill at Mt. Hope looking west toward the setting sun. The Melanski glistened through the distant trees. In my opinion, it is the best view in the cemetery.
“He was a complicated man,” Ma began, after we’d stood for ten minutes. “No one took the time to try and understand him. I know I didn’t. I didn’t appreciate who and what he was until the end, and then it was too late.”
I didn’t have anything to add, so we stood in silence looking out over the place that had been central to our lives for so long.
“I knew there was more to him. I didn’t stop at his name like the rest of the town. So he was a Holmes, so what? I didn’t realize the depth of him, and I didn’t try to explore it.”
“Ma, tell me.”
“I don’t know that there’s all that much to tell,” she said, trying to brush her whimsy aside.
Most times I wouldn’t have pushed, but she had promised to tell me about the man, and I had cared enough to come home despite my confused feelings for the man who had at times been like an older brother, a father, an uncle, a boss and a deranged co-worker towards me. I persisted, “No, there’s a story. Please, tell me.”
Ma heard the note of pleading in my voice, the need. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders as she said, “okay. There is a story, but I just need to tell it, so please, let me.”
We sat down in the grass next to Santiago’s stone. Ma was quiet for a little while, content to let the early autumn sun fall upon us. Its warmth was not unwelcome. I turned to Ma and saw a single tear trace a path down her cheek.
“Now is as good a time as any,” she said to herself, then to me, “it was a blistering hot day in August. Scorching hot, with humidity you bit into every time you took a breath. I was 22, 23 at the time. You were just a little thing at the time.
“I’d worked at the bank all day and shot over to the Tavern as soon as I was done there. I knew we’d be busy with the heat on and all. I was hoping to get on early to make a little extra.
“When I got there, it was hopping. All the regulars were there and anyone else who could stand to rub elbows with the Berwick ‘elite’. You know how the place was, most of the regulars had their usual tables out in front so they could be seen.
“Others who were there often, but didn’t have the same status, like Big Mike Tatum, packed in on stools and high tables around the bar.
“Then there were the folks just passing through town, or the locals who didn’t come out much, just looking for a drink or a meal, or the kids of the ‘elite’ who were of age, or close-ish, but weren’t allowed to sit in the front where they might associate with their parents. It was a stupid, but that was how it worked.
“Pap would also come in a few times a week. He didn’t much care for the seating rules, but still had a stool he took at the back of the bar where he could survey the place.
“I think he preferred the rougher company and more relaxed atmosphere of the Tortoise. I don’t think he liked seeing me behind the bar either, but he always said when it got hot he preferred ‘the smell of money to the smell of the man sitting next to me.’ So along with the regulars he was there that night.
“At a table in the back Billy Braithwaite was celebrating his 21stbirthday with a group of lackeys. I think they were also celebrating the end of summer and the start of his senior year of college.
“His father was sitting up front and had said to bring Billy and his crew whatever they wanted, but to make sure they kept to the back. That was typical of the Berwick aristocracy; wanting their children to be seen but not heard.
“Billy’d been a punk in high school. He was a rich kid who let everyone know about it. He had a mean comment or a dig to cut every person he came into contact with. He and Santiago were a couple years behind me, and thick as thieves in those days.
“Santiago had been a rich punk too, but nowhere near as bad as Billy. He was no angel, but no one was Billy Braithwaite. I didn’t have a problem with either of them. I think I was old enough and plain enough that I stayed off their radar.
“It wasn’t until the mills closed and Santiago’s father died that Billy turned on Santiago. Just like the rest of the town, he rode upon the tidal wave of hatred that crashed down on him. I still don’t understand how they could all turn on a boy 17, 18. It was like a switch flipped when the mills closed.
“They didn’t even take a day to think about where else to place their animosity. They just switched from one Holmes to the next. It was awful to see.”
