The Witches Of Denmark (2 page)

So I tried. It was easy enough during dinner, since my raging hunger being satisfied brought a moment of contentment. I fought to hold on to that feeling as we resumed our trip south. After Murray, we soon reached a very small town called Hazel, Kentucky, where my mother and sister remarked favorably about the prospects of antiquing. Both sides of the road were lined with stores specializing in the merchandise of yesteryear. In fact, the stores seemed to be all that existed of Hazel, other than a restaurant or two, and a filling station.

Dad seemed pretty intrigued about returning to the little antique-hoarding town, too. As for me, I had never cared much for trinkets from bygone eras. Only the bigger items, like the stately and ostentatious furniture of the Victorian age. Something I grew up with.

“Can we come here again, like, maybe tomorrow?” Alisia asked, causing me to whip my head in her direction. She whispered, “Sorry!” when I eyed her accusingly. This wasn’t the agreed upon plan between us, and she was making things too easy on our parents.

“Sure, sweetie,” said Mom, sounding quite pleased to have one kid wavering toward the dark side. “I’d love that.”

I had officially been betrayed.
This royally sucks!

Left to continue my protest alone, I scarcely noticed we had crossed the Tennessee border, less than a minute beyond Hazel. After moving through another small town on the Tennessee side, we reached the outskirts of Denmark.

“I know how you both detest long road trips,” Dad said. “But, at least you got to see the same scenery your mom and I enjoyed when we came down here to close on the house last week. Southern Kentucky and Tennessee are certainly as beautiful as advertised.”

“We didn’t get to see Kentucky Lake, despite your promise, Dad,” I said, determined to keep the conversation objective. “An aerial view would’ve been better for that.
Much
better, in fact.”

Another glint of annoyance flashed in his eyes as he regarded me through the rearview mirror. Surely he knew what I was getting at. He looked away to view the road ahead and to exchange a loving glance with Mom, whose irritation I could almost feel the warmth from, radiating toward me through the back of her seat. Though I couldn’t see her expression, I could clearly picture it. The fire in Dad’s eyes was usually nothing compared to her sapphire flames, whenever she’s had enough of either Alisia’s or my sassiness.

Alisia grinned at me, mouthing “
Way to go!”

“It’s located to the east of us, son,” Mom advised, releasing a low sigh that extinguished much of her ire. “But what you’re getting at, we discussed thoroughly last night. Remember? We can no longer afford to be frequent flyers. It’s important to fit in with the people of Denmark as much as possible. And, once we get settled, your father and I have discussed purchasing a nice boat for the lake. There is much to do there in the way of fun, from what our real estate agent told us. The lake is enormous.”

“The largest manmade lake in North America and the second largest in the world.” Dad sounded impressed. “The fishing is supposed to be comparable, if not better, than Lake Michigan.”

“Oh, really?”

Not that I expected him to expound further, since we had reached Denmark’s city limits. At least I assumed so, judging from the huge frog smiling at us from the side of the road. A frog wearing a cowboy hat, no less. That, and a big neon “Welcome to Denmark” above the frog sign.

“Yes, it’s true, Bas,” said Dad, resuming our conversation. “As you can see, we’re here.”

At first, ‘here’ looked like any other small town we had seen since reaching southern Illinois. A few salvage yards and building supply companies, an auto repair shop, and a drive thru ATM for the First Bank of Denmark. Next came a bar-b-que pit, a run down Mexican restaurant, and at least five beauty shops lining both sides of the road—three of them situated between a Farm Bureau insurance agent, Edward Jones Investments, and the offices of the local Denmark Gazette.

“Well, at least the square looks pretty cool,” said Alisia, drifting further from our alliance as we came upon Denmark’s version of downtown. The place that Dad claimed they held the ‘World’s Biggest Frog Leg Fry’ every spring.
Thank God April’s already behind us!
“Hey, Mom, look—there’s a fashion boutique!”

She pointed to a quaint shop sitting next to what I assumed was the town’s lone Chinese restaurant, “The Sanchuan Dragon”. The restaurant was framed in red lattice with a gold-leafed dragon straight out of San Fran’s China Town.

“Much of the architecture has been restored to what the square looked like shortly after the Civil War ended,” Dad told me, when Mom joined Alisia’s fixation with the discovery of new places to explore and shop. “The courthouse sitting in the middle is the oldest building to survive a pre-Civil War fire, and was expanded to its current size during the last railroad boom around 1890….”

Admittedly, he lost me after that. My attention, and soon my sister’s, was drawn to an old white guy making a political statement along the walkway in front of the courthouse.

“This place is loaded with history… interesting history at that,” said Dad. It appeared he noticed my fixation with the old man parading back and forth like a proud peacock.

“We had plenty of interesting history back home,” I told him, glumly.

“This might be home for awhile, son,” he advised, this time not bothering to look at me in the rearview mirror. Instead, he appeared anxious for the light to change and for the slowpoke in front of us to get out of the way, so my father could turn right onto a narrow two lane street taking us away from the blip of downtown. “You should try to make the best of it.”

He’s really in a hurry to get someplace…. The new house?

“Yeah, well we’ll have to see about that,” I said, pleased when my comment drew a glance from him.

“Give it time…. Who knows? You might like it here,” said Mom, craning her neck toward me. “And, if you don’t, well, you might get your wish for us to try something else out west. Just depends.”

“On what?” Alisia stifled a laugh. “On the guy over there wearing the sandwich board that says ‘White Rights’?”

She pointed to the old white guy who had stopped to shout at passing motorists, more like an angry rooster now. It seemed that everyone within striking distance either ignored him or got out of his way. Even the blacks ignored him, as if they had seen his tired routine for so long his racial hatred had become invisible.

“Oh,” said our father, pausing to watch the man for a moment, before turning onto the road that would take us away from the spectacle. “I guess not everyone has moved past Jim Crow.”

“No, not everyone…. But, we knew things would be a little different than up north,” said Mom. “And the people we met while purchasing the house were quite nice. I liked their smiles.”

I couldn’t help snickering. “Are you serious? You decided to move us out of the hometown we grew up in because you liked these people’s smiles?”

A middle-aged African-American man crossed the road ahead of us, jaywalking. Dad politely waited for him to cross, and the man shuffled slowly, delivering a hard stare at the Escalade and its passengers.

“Good thing that guy’s not a wand carrier, huh?”

“Yes, Bas, it is indeed fortunate,” Dad replied, glancing in the mirror again. He let out a slight chuckle. “Actually, that guy’s expression is similar to your typical Chicagoan, if you think about it. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of others like him down here, too…. But, as for the comment to your mom, what have you got against warm and friendly people?”

“Nothing, Just thought it was funny, is all.”

We were on the way down Woodard Street, which kind of reminded me of parts of Wheaton and other suburbs like Elmhurst. Lots of ‘four square’ and ‘craftsman’ homes on either side. Although, just like in many Chicago neighborhoods, one could easily detect an imaginary line that separated the ‘haves’ on the one side of the street from the less-fortunate residents on the other. In this case, the homes on the south side were in much worse shape than those on the north side of Woodard.

“We met a couple of families in the neighborhood who moved here from Wisconsin, to get away from the cold. They seemed nice, too,” said Mom.

“Anyway, why don’t you kids check out the homes up this way?” Dad had just turned right, onto a narrower street called Chaffin’s Bend. “You might see a thing or two that’ll catch your eye.”

Although signs remained of a nearby ‘hood’ lurking just a few blocks away, the trip up to the top of what Dad called ‘Depot Hill’ was more like a trip through deeper layers of Denmark’s storied history. Of course, none of us fully understood the area’s significance to the city at the time, other than the fact we came upon several grand Victorian homes that mom called ‘painted ladies’ based on pink, purple, and green color schemes from the post-Civil War reconstruction period.

It wasn’t enough to elicit ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ as our parents might’ve hoped for, since these weren’t homes to rival the massive opulence of Chico Town’s Highland Park area. But, I’ll admit these elaborate 1880s homes stood out sharply compared to the more modest homes we had seen. As I alluded to earlier, I’ve always been drawn to Victorian architecture, either here or in England.

“So, you like?” asked Mom, grinning at our approving nods.

“It’s kinda cool… interesting in a different way,” said Alisia.

“I’m with Alisia on that,” I said, reluctantly giving ground in the tug-o-war for leverage to ensure our stay in Denmark was short and sweet. I intended to go heavy on the ‘short’ aspect. “I think I just spotted a couple of crack dealers back there in an alley, and….”

“And what?” asked Alisia, when I didn’t finish. She followed my gaze and gasped.

Rising like a mini Mount Olympus on the corner of Chaffin’s Bend and Old Dominion Road stood a stately plantation house. Sheltered by majestic trees that were surely as old as it, and the grounds decorated with old statues and park-like gardens, the house looked like it belonged in some classic movie. Not that we hadn’t seen more lavish residences in Chicago—including the aforementioned Highland Park villas and mansions. But, to see this antebellum edifice in the middle of an area that was surrounded by near slum-like conditions just a few blocks away was… well unsettling, to be honest.

Regardless, I had to recover from such an unfavorable reaction… and, quickly.

“Uhhh… what’s a nice place like that doing in a run-down area?”

Not exactly what I wanted to say, but effective enough to allow a retreat and regroup before going on the offensive again.

“The area is in transition—
not
run down,” said Dad, irritated. I began to wonder if he and Mom had picked one of the more modest houses on either Old Dominion or further down Chaffin’s Bend. That would allow us to abide by ‘The Code’. “Yes, the area needs work, but, this part of town was once the high-society area of Denmark. This house is called ‘Twin Magnolias’ for the majestic trees on either side of the house facing out toward Old Dominion. It once belonged to a wealthy US Senator and Confederate general, Jeremiah Atwater, who was largely responsible for the development and prosperity of Denmark. So, the older folks call it the ‘Old Atwater Place’. The house once sat on over 40 acres of land. The other Victorian homes were added later, as part of a ritzy neighborhood built around this wonderful home at the turn of the twentieth century.”

“It looks like
Tara
from
Gone With The Wind
,” said Alisia, reverently.

True. It did look a lot like Tara.

“It’s not near as big as
Tara
, Alisia,” said Mom, smiling broadly in response to our reactions. It did make it harder to be as disdainful of Denmark. “It was built in 1854, and remained a farm until 1904, when the land was divided up and sold to build the other houses around it that are almost as big.”

“Mini mansions?” I asked, determined to whittle away the magic.

“Yes… in a way. They were considered mansions back in the day, but now a 4500 square foot home is just a big house,” said Dad. “But this place still has two acres of the original lot, and a servants’ cottage and barn still remain as well.”

“How come you two know so much about this place?” asked Alisia. “I assume our new digs will be around here someplace, right?”

I had been scouting the area for the big blue semi carrying our shit from Wheaton. But couldn’t see it anywhere.

“I love history, remember? Once taught it at the University of Chicago… long ago,” said Dad. I had forgotten about that, and surely my sister had, too. Though she was probably too young to remember, if I had the dates of Dad’s tenure right.

Our SUV coasted through the intersection, and moved further down Chaffin’s Bend. A fairly nice bungalow to the left enjoyed a great view of the grand house. And, as the Escalade continued to creep along, I figured this must be our new house… or was it the bigger four-square next to it? Both needed a little work, but our old cape cod was in worse shape when we purchased it. Either house would fit “The Code”, as defined by our extended family, albeit cars and trucks were parked on the street in front of each one.

But Dad kept driving, and my heart sank as the next houses needed serious work. One was leaning and looked like a solid gust would blow it over.