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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 70: Brown 306
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 106
Maurice was still standing, and he spoke to the criminal visitor who had just taken a chair.
“Marion. I’se surprised.”
Marion hung his head. Maurice snorted. He looked unforgiving. Derek wanted to say something about being kind, but the words of ‘being Yankee’ came back to him, so he instead asked, “Why did you do it, and why come back to apologize?”
Marion looked up, and looking ashamed he explained.
“It’s hard. I’m the second youngest brother, and smaller than the youngest, so I gets to be beaten a lot. All the other brothers think it’s great fun to rob and beat people. I di’n’t like that, but they beat me, so I taught myself how to pick pockets, that way I could steal, but not hurt anyone.”
Derek glanced over at the others, and Maurice spoke grudgingly.
“Marion was allus the smahtest of the Malcolm boys. I heard tell that his Papa liked the letter M, and his Momma is–” Maurice scratched his head.
“Emma. The oldest is Morgan, then Marcus, Marlon, me, and Mason,” Marion filled in. “I did it because the others demanded I join in. And the money. My brothers said they met a rich man, called Mister Misery, who gave each of them a gold coin to rob the place, if we all went.”
Derek froze. Again he heard in his mind the promise of the devil to give him ‘terror, misery, and madness’. He had faced the devil at the music hall, and the devil had brought him terror at the thought of losing Missus Johnson’s son’s soul to Darkness. Now is the time of Misery; this was what the devil was telling him by using that name.
“My brothers confessed after you left that if they had won in battle, they would have broken your fingers, all of them, as Mister Misery asked. It was too much. I came here instead to apologize.”
Derek looked at Maurice, the question clear in his face. He did not look to Vashti, as he knew her already. Pierre nodded. Maurice looked at Lei He, but he showed by his face that it was not his concern. Maurice looked back at Derek, and spoke.
“I accept.”
“We accept.”
Marion gave them a tremulous smile, and straightened up.
“Ah hears youz guys is good,” he said. “What d’you call yeselves?”
“Oh,” Derek said. “Nothing, really. I think they called us something like the Brown Dixieland Quartet when we played at the dance hall, but we’re a quintet now, so I guess we need a new name.
“So, what kind of music do you do?”
“Mostly Dixieland, some gospel, some classical, kind of mixed together.”
“And it’s all five of youz?”
Derek nodded.
“What about something like, ‘The Living Colors Dixieland Gospel Band’?”
They stared at each other, going around the room. Pierre was the first to speak. “That actually works,” he said.
The others agreed.
“Progress has been made,” Derek said. “Tomorrow when we play at Hannah’s, we’ll be The Living Colors Dixieland Gospel Band.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #506: Characters Involved. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
