Florine put her hand over her mouth in shock. "My dear Billy, no one in this family works. We are not a part of the great unwashed, the average folk. They work for us, and so sweet Billy, they shall work for you. But first you must graduate from a fine local university and then take your place alongside son-Cash to hunt in the fields, attend marvelous parties with champagne fountains and international food stations, travel around the world, and be with me whenever M.C. is away enjoying his frequent liaisons."
Billy thought of Lillie draped in black silk on the bed as a scene in a movie. His hand was still in his pocket. "But Uncle M.C. said I could be a famous actor."
"You can play that role during the summers while you are on vacation. Your uncle will select a script for you, something Paul Newman might like, and with the appropriate leading lady of course."
Billy paused a moment in thought. "Do you know what Lillie's plans for the future might be?"
Florine wheezed, "Sweet Billy, do you have a fancy for flirtatious Lillie?"
Billy looked at the black marble floor with flecks of blue diamonds creating patterns of constellations as in the night sky. "She has aroused my...my curiosity."
"I myself have not entered into the closet of her mind, except to ask which line of work she was going to follow, her father's or her mother's."
"And what was her reply?"
"Neither. She said she would take her faith and go into the world to serve with sacrifice in payment for her father's sins. I know she'll be happy."
"When does lovely Lillie plan to commence this odyssey?"
"After further teaching from her father on what is always best. But I must warn you. M.C. does not want either you or son-Cash to associate with Lillie as she is beneath our status in life and is therefore inferior."
"I understand," Billy said as he gave his aunt a hug and three pats on the back. He then asked, "Where is Cash now?"
"He is spending the summer at a neo-Nazi retreat in Philadelphia. He of course has not told the white rigidly upright leaders that his grandmother was Jewish, or that his great grandfather was black."
"Just as well," Billy said.
"Even so, his shaved head is so precious."
"I'm sure," Billy said as he excused himself to bathe in the bright sunshine and fresh air of noonday Los Angeles.
Billy entered the maze of flowering shrubs and soon found himself at a large fountain, the water spraying from the navel of an ancient Oriental. He decided not to have a drink. On a concrete bench nearby was the Reverend Jerry Roberts and his daughter Lillie. He seemed to be instructing her in a lesson. Billy drew closer to listen, careful not to be seen.
"You must always accept things in life as they are," the Reverend said, one eye squinting in the bright sunlight, the other closed, "because everything is for the best." Seeing her nod vigorously, he continued. "You see, my daughter, it is the will of God that we suffer because we messed up his favorite garden. He cursed man to live in toil with thorns because man was nothing but an embarrassment anyway, and told the women-folk that he was going to really make things tough for them when they had kids. Talk about being ticked off." The Reverend paused, looked up for a moment, said, "Daughter, you are on the pill aren't you?" She didn't stop nodding and he said, "Since then he has given us countless opportunities to experience his wrath by showing his new ways to suffer. To please him we must accept our punishment, and whatever happens must be good in his sight, even though to us it is painful, torturous and otherwise unpleasant."
Lillie's head was continuing to move up and down so rapidly that Billy became concerned that her neck muscles might be permanently stretched. But then he realized that it was all right because it would be the will of God and a sore neck would be very good in this wonderful world of punishment and pain. He dug his long fingers into his neck to experience the enjoyment of righteous distress. Billy had been looking since age seven for a philosophy of life, and now he had found it: Whatever happens to a person must be good because everyone is bad, and everyone's experience in life is God's will, otherwise it could not happen. Suddenly he understood the beauty of sorrow, despair, villainy, poverty, squalor and disease.
He watched as lovely Lillie stood and turned her neck from side to side, then lifted her arms and leaned back, stretching the red silk blouse tightly against her breasts. "Thank you for your wisdom, my Daddy," she said, "but isn't it possible for us to find happiness in this world?"
"Daughter, millions upon millions have been born again with testimony following only to continue to be murdered, pillaged, plundered, sacked, looted, stripped and fleeced. Therefore, we have a God whose anger has not subsided in millions of years, an Almighty who laughs at our calamities. And it has been revealed that pain is pleasure, sorrow is joy, sadness is happiness, and not the opposite of each other."
Billy watched as she leaned over and touched the toes of her high heel shoes, her tight silk jeans forming a blue sheath over her firm, beautifully rounded buttocks. As she straightened to her full five foot six inches, she said, "Then what you are saying, my Daddy, is that we should look for calamity, tragedy, adversity and misfortune in order to live the best of all possible lives."
"Yes, my daughter, we must walk through continuous blight and die with our sins on in preparation for the great courtroom in the sky."
Lillie smiled broadly. "I think I am ready to begin my fatal, ruinous and deleterious life."
"My child, wait until January first. That is only six months away and will give you a fresh field of snow in which to make your tracks."
"Oh Daddy, you are so poetic. And you're right. It will take me six months to shop and make adequate preparations for a wonderful life of misery."
2
The following day Billy Barker decided to walk through the lush fruit-laden trees and flowering shrubs of the twenty acre Doobie estate. He found his way through the maze again, moved past the concrete bench where lovely Lillie received her lessons, and after several minutes had reached a low hill near the ten foot rock fence at the back of the property. He climbed a tree for a better view of the grand and noble home and grounds.
While he was in the tree he heard a melodious voice singing Answer Me My Love. He became very still and listened for the source of the exquisite sound. Suddenly his breath leaped. He had spotted Lillie strolling through the forest glen pulling petals from a large yellow daisy, her voice crying out in ecstasy laced with misery. She was dressed in a snug-fitting yellow silk blouse with side slits and a matching silk slim skirt with a back kick pleat and yellow high heels. He slid down the trunk of the tree and said hello.
Startled, she stepped back and dropped the daisy. "Oh, Billy Barker, it's you. I wasn't expecting anyone."
"Out for a walk?" Billy asked with a pleasing smile.
"No, only thinking about my life and the new adventure of hardship and woe that is to come upon me."
"Yes," Billy said with excitement in his voice as he stepped closer to the fragrance radiating from her ravishing body, her dark hair gently blowing across her captivating face. He pulled her to him and felt the rise and fall of her breasts. Their lips met, mouths opened, tongues played. His hand cupped her breast and she slowly slipped down to the thick bed of lush grass, Billy beside her. Everything is indeed for the best he thought as he unbuttoned her silk blouse.
