The Burnt Orange Heresy: A Novel by Charles Willeford

Author:Charles Willeford [Willeford, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683358015
Publisher: ABRAMS, Inc. (Ignition)
Published: 2020-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

3

When Debierue granted his permission for me to keep and publish the photograph, I hurried out to the car and got one of our magazine’s standard release forms out of the glove compartment. The mimeographed form (large circulation magazines have them printed) is a simple agreement between subject and magazine to make publication legal, to protect one party from the other. There is nothing underhanded about a signed photo release. Debierue could read English, of course, but the involved legalese the form was couched in forced me to explain the damned thing at some length before he would sign it. Debierue wasn’t stupid or willful. He believed naively that his oral okay was enough.

Because of this discussion, the dinners were ready before we knew it. I forgot to look at my watch, and it was Berenice who heard and recognized the faint buzzing in the kitchen as the oven timer.

It was almost pleasant on the screened porch. A light breeze came up, and although the wind was hot, it was relatively comfortable in the darkening twilight as we sat at the candlelit card table to eat the miserable off-brand TV dinners.

The dinners had been purchased by the Negro maid who came every Wednesday to take care of the old man’s laundry and to do his difficult cleaning. She also brought his other weekly food supplies. By buying these cheap TV dinners, she was probably knocking down on the food money. I didn’t suggest this to him, but I discussed brand names, the brand-name fallacy, and wrote out a short list of worthwhile frozen food buys he could depend upon. He had a delusion that frozen foods were better, somehow, than fresh. Berenice started halfheartedly to tell him otherwise, but when she saw me shake my head she changed the subject to domestic wines. Debierue distrusted California wines, but I added the brands of some Napa Valley wines to the frozen food list, and he said he would try them. Other than tap water, all he drank, because French wines were too dear, was frozen orange juice.

The Gold Coast for some twenty miles inland, from Jupiter downstate to Key Largo, is tropical—not subtropical, as so many people erroneously believe. The tropical weather is caused by the warmth of the Gulf Stream, less than six miles off the coast. There is little difference between the weather in Miami and that of Saigon. Debierue’s house, on a hammock, with a black swamp and the Everglades for a backyard, was depressingly humid. After eating the dry turkey dinner, my mouth felt as if it were dehydrated, and I couldn’t drink enough fluid to unparch my throat. I poured another glass of orange juice (my fourth) and sensed, as I did so, a certain anxiety or impatience developing in the old man. As an experienced dinner guest, I have picked up an instinct about wearing out welcomes.

The sky had darkened from bruise blue to gentian violet, and it was only a few minutes after six thirty.

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